Aranyer Din Ratri

Aranyer Din Ratri (Days and Nights in the Forest) 1969

Year - 1969
Producer - Priya Films
Screenplay - Satyajit Ray
Based on - The novel Aranyer Din Ratri by Sunil Ganguly
Photography - Soumendu Roy, Purnendu Bose
Editor - Dulal Dutta
Art Director - Bansi Chandragupta
Music - Satyajit Ray
Sound - Sujit Sarkar
Length - 115 min.
Print - Black & White

Cast:
Harinath - Samit Bhanja
Asim - Soumitra Chatterjee
Sanjoy - Subhendu Chatterjee
Sekhar - Rabi Ghosh
Sadasiv Tripathi - Pahari Sanyal
Aparna - Sharmila Tagore
Jaya - Kaveri Bose
Duli - Simi Garewal
Atasi - Aparna Sen

Four friends from Calcutta who have very different personalities make a holiday excursion into the country, to a tiny village in the state of Bihar where they set themselves up in a bungalow. A series of minor events, all connected to their respective reactions to their new environment, reveals their characters more deeply. Displaced from their customary sense of social rules, they engage Lakha as a servant until the day when Hari, having lost his wallet, accuses him of stealing it, strikes him, and sends him away. They meet a beautiful local woman, Duli. When Hari uses her for some fast sex, Lakha ambushes him in revenge. The others become very friendly with two young women from the neighborhood who live on a comfortable estate. The inhibited Sanjoy does not dare to respond to Jaya's interest while Aparna leaves Asim after giving him her address on a five-rupee note. The friends depart again for the city, pretending to be unaffected by their experiences.
Referred to as "Ray's Mozartian masterpiece" for its emotional complexity and delicate balancing of responses, this film proves, definitively, Ray's affinity with Mozart.
The original negative of this film was lost in a fire.