Teen Kanya (1961): Another classic from Satyajit Ray based on short stories of Rabindranath Tagore. Its a collection of three short stories based on life of three girls. Watching a black and white movie in today's time is an experience on its own and when they are made by Ray - you don't need any other reason to see and praise them big time. Every time I pick up one of his movies - I end up falling in love with them and my respect for the man keeps growing with every story. Its a must watch for all classic movie lovers. The first one is no less than a thriller and remaining two are heart warming stories which make you smile. Not to be missed at any cost. Bengali isn't too tuff to understand anyways and all his movies nowadays are subtitles encoded.
Monihara (the lost jewels): Based on the life of a greedy woman Manimalika and her husband. They live in kolkata but since his wife can't bear a child and due to family pressure they move to his ancestral house in village. Her husband is very loving and takes good care of her. She has a dark past which is never revealed. She even puts a suspicious looking guy to work in her husbands factory stating that he is her distant cousin. Everything is going good till due to sudden turn of things they incur big loss in business and almost go bankrupt. Very reluctantly She offers her jewelry to her husband so he can cover his losses but he doesn't accept it and offers to go to town to get some financial help. When he returns - to his shock his wife has already absconded with her cousin and she takes her whole jewelry too with her.
He even gets a damn good necklace with him as a gift for her. He keeps waiting for her but she never comes back. In the last scene of the story it is shown that her ghost returns on a full moon night and picks up the necklace that he brought her. All this story is actually being read by a guy sitting on river shore to a suspicious looking lady in black who claims that the story is full of error. As the guy reading it asks her how she knows the flaws - she reveals she is "manimalika". The last scene was quite scary to say the least. I wasn't expecting the shock.
The Postmaster: The second story is about a little girl Ratan around 10 years old who works for the local postmaster of a remote village. The old postmaster is transferred and the new one joins in his place. She takes care of his household needs and daily life. Realizing that she is an orphan with no family the New postmaster who was a nice guy, starts teaching her as well. They both get very fond of each other till one day the guy falls sick and suddenly decides to move back to town. Poor Ratan's happiness was short lived and in the last scene of the story its heart touching to see that Ratan moves on with her upcoming life. And a new postmaster joins in and the old one goes away.
Samapti (the conclusion): Based on the life of Amulya who comes to his village on vacation to his waiting mother who wants him to get married as soon as possible. He wants to pursue Law and had no plans of getting into married life yet he is forced to meet the girls and finalize one for his marriage. He meets a free spirited Minoo and falls for her - the whole village calls her crazy as she keeps a pet squirrel and plays whole day with kids. After a big argument his mother finally gives up and settles their marriage. Right after marriage minoo starts throwing tantrums and goes off to her carefree life much to the shock of her husband and mother in law.
In one scene even after being locked in a room - she runs away in the dead of the night and is shown playing and finally sleeping in a swing on riverside. Amulya gives up on her and moves back to town leaving her behind. With time she realizes her mistake and as he comes back to her after couple of months - she apologizes to him and they go back to their normal life.
These are all simple out of real life stories yet told in such simplistic and riveting manner that it does amazes you. Satyajit Ray's work oozes of quality. Very small small things in the movie make you smile and cherish. And they live in your memory for quite a long time. I'm totally hooked to his movies now. Going to see them all.
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