City of broken dreams: Urban alienation in Satyajit Ray's Calcutta trilogy

In the turbulent 1970s, Satyajit Ray turned his lens on Kolkata—a city caught between political unrest, corporate greed and moral collapse. Through his iconic Calcutta trilogy, Ray crafted an unflinching portrait of urban alienation, following three disillusioned protagonists as they steer through a city that demands survival at any cost. Ray explored how Kolkata becomes both a character and a crucible in cinema, reflecting the anxieties of a generation and a metropolis teetering on the edge.

- Anwesha Santra

Few directors have captured the pulse of a city with as much nuance and empathy as Satyajit Ray. While his earlier works, especially The Apu Trilogy, explored rural Bengal with lyrical realism, it was in the turbulent 1970s that Ray turned his gaze to urban Kolkata—a city seething with unemployment, political unrest and moral compromise.

The result was the Calcutta Trilogy: Pratidwandi (The Adversary) (1970), Seemabaddha (Company Limited) (1971) and Jana Aranya (The Middleman) (1976). Together, these films form a bleak, unflinching portrait of a metropolis where dreams go to die, and where alienation becomes the defining emotion of its inhabitants.

Ray used the city of Kolkata not merely as a setting, but as a character—oppressive, indifferent, and at times, brutal. Through his disillusioned protagonists, cinematic techniques and evocative urban imagery, Ray constructed a narrative of urban alienation that remains strikingly relevant even today.

CALCUTTA AS A CHARACTER

In the Calcutta trilogy, the city is far more than a backdrop; it is an active participant in the characters' lives. Ray's Kolkata is a landscape of decaying colonial mansions, overcrowded trams, shadowy alleys and impersonal office blocks. It is a city marked by its contradictions—one moment a haven for intellectual debate, the next a theatre of violence.

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