'I'D HAVE LOVED TO PRESENT PRATIDWANDI AT CANNES'

'Where Pratidwandi is concerned, there are very few men standing.'

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Dhritiman Chatterjee, a post-graduate in economics, came from a world outside of cinema, yet made an impressive debut in the first film in Satyajit Ray's Calcutta trilogy, Pratidwandi.

He played Siddhartha Chaudhuri, forced by his father's sudden demise to quit his studies and hit the streets of Kolkata in search of a job that eludes him.

Unwilling to compromise like his sister or be radicalized by Left politics like his brother, Siddhartha eventually leaves the city to settle for a future with perhaps no ambitions or aspirations.

Surprisingly, even though Siddhartha Chaudhuri is more of a passive spectator than a raging crusader and explodes just once, Dhritiman Chatterjee was typed as the urban, angry, young man, a tag he has shrugged off in the five decades since.

The actor rewinds to his first tryst with the camera as the digitally restored Pratidwandi gears up for screening at the 75th Cannes film festival.

"My performance was well received and Ray's gamble of casting a first-time actor even a non-actor in the sense that after Pratidwandi, I went back to working outside of cinema -- paid off," Chatterjee says, long-distance from Goa, where he has a second home, admitting that he would have been happy to present the cult film at Cannes.

What were the reactions to Pratidwandi when it was released on October 27, 1970?

Well, it was a long time ago -- 52 years to be precise -- but I recall that family, friends, and even the general public sat up and took notice because it was a very different film for Satyajit Ray.

Stylistically, it was a departure from his usual classical style, far more technical with freezes, jump cuts, and hand-held camera shots.

Those familiar with international cinema would know these filming techniques from French New Wave which predated Pratidwandi.