Jana Aranya
by Satyajit Ray
Having read the work of literature this film is based on, long before seeing it, the surprise was why the renowned director would bring down the level of much more real, subtle work and instead go with a bold, filmy alternative - especially so in the climactic scene, where in the film the director chooses to have a conversation where the protagonist repeatedly tells his friend's sister that she can have the money without going through with having to satisfy his clent, and she refuses the pity and charity.
In the original work, his guilt devastated being is shown at the scene post this, where he sees his sister in law has discovered the gift, a saree, that she was supposed to be surprised with if he was successful getting his client to sign, and he pleads with her to not wear the saree, "it's dirty" he says, and she is stumped looking at it and saying, "no, it's not, why would you say so?"
But then reading Nashtaneed by Ravindranath Tagore and seeing Charulata, the Ray film based on it, one has to say the changes in this film are comparatively far less devastating.to the soul of the original work.
Why being self-labelled a leftist intellectual must make some itch quite so to destroy the beauty inherent and replace it with an ugliness that wasn't there in the first place, is perhaps a far bigger subject of study.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWrXERdiIaE
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