Satyajit Ray's 1970 film Aranyer Din Ratri, while on the surface is a 'philosophical' thoughtful exercise on the relationship between man and nature and interplay of human interactions, but scratch the surface and it is a pretty offensive film, especially if you are a Santhali tribal or any working class man.
A few bhodroloki brahmins in the films have 'epiphanies' and 'discover' their inner selves, all the while behaving quite horribly with every 'chhotolok' person.
And the director the great Satyajit Ray no less, perhaps enamoured by exotic western films where the white man turns his colonial gaze to 'study' other cultures while condemning them simultaneously...he does a better job than those racist film makers.
For starters, a tribal woman is played by Simi Garewal in blackface. No kidding, in 1970. Then the way she is portrayed as amoral, sexually promiscuous, 'free' to drink and make merry for a dime - it all is reminiscent of early British notions about Indian women!
Then the matter of the chhotolok men - either totally subservient, to the point of being a prop in the larger drama of the brahmins getting life lessons (the chaukidar for example) or cruel and untrustworthy, eager to kill (like Lakha). Even when bribing the watchman, against his wishes, the hero quips 'thank god for corruption'. All the while, the chaukidar remains a pesky character, who keeps disturbing the protagonists' plans of attaining inner knowledge. It seems almost inconsequential, that the chhotolok seem to lack any agency in having their own epiphanies, their own discoveries.
And the bit about Lakha, violently attacking one of the protagonists in the end. Like it never happens, never have the tribals, the dalits, bahujans in this country rose up against the hegemony of brahmins, violently, a few exceptions aside. Never has India ever seen a violent social upheavel like in Communist Russia, China. One of the reasons for the same is, Indian state is permanently on alert against such organizing by the dalit bahujans and is ever eager to suppress even their mildest protests.
The reason for my digression above, is the use of such films, literature in enabling the Indian state. Indian ideology is heavily dependent on such cultural products, which reproduce the fantasies of an eternal India of yore, one where the brahmins are the natural, liberated souls, while every one else serves as a threat or as a prop. You only have to look at Kashmir, to understand how the same colonizing gaze appears again and again in films, literature on Kashmir.
Every moment of the film reeks with an exploitative framing of a colonizer, inspecting its subjects. It made me very uneasy to watch it. The director asks us to be sympathetic to these bhodroloki men who are in a way, reflection of the primary audience of the film too. Hence, barely any commentary on this problematic framing in any of the reviews of the film.
The saving grace is Soumitra, looking all dapper and with his abundant natural charm and elegance which frankly doesn't belong here.
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