7. Subarnarekha (1962)

Language: Bengali

Director: Ritwik Ghatak

Running time: 143 mins

Starring: Abhi Bhattacharya, Bijon Bhattacharya, Madhabi Mukherjee

Company: JJ Films

Ghatak's vision in this final instalment of his partition trilogy is a more personal one than in Meghe Dhaka Tara as it focuses on the inner life of the world-weary partition refugee as he retreats from civilization into the wilderness on a journey of self-discovery and self-renewal. The false voice-over accompanying the protagonist's sweeping gaze across the unreal whiteness of the sands of the Subarnarekha riverbed is a sombre one and sets the tone for the director's harrowing yet lyrical vision of post-partition Bengal in the throes of urbanisation and industrialisation. From this point on, the film's melodramatic imagery can be read as a projection of the protagonist's inner turmoil intersecting with Ghatak's cinematic study of various forms of dislocation - of childhood, of sexual difference, of poverty, of political violence. As in his other films the action is framed firmly against the ritualistic detail of the everyday giving the film its epic feel.