Critics reviews

Based on a short story by Narendranath Mitra, Ray's 1963 film The Big City is a perfect jumping-off point. On the one hand, it tells a relatable story about fear and courage, with a loveable protagonist; on the other, it feels unique and fresh, offering a female point-of-view on issues such as money, labour and justice in 1960s Calcutta.

Ray perches the film on the front lines of history, and he captures with visual incisiveness and dramatic precision the vast political implications of intimate changes. Part of that power is derived from the city itself, where rounds of unexpected encounters and overlapping relationships give minor impacts major echoes.

Ray, as always, locates and follows the pulse of working-class life with a wholly respectful and unsentimental eye for details and a canny ear for family talk... The way the filmmaker is able to fluidly expand from an intimate matter of family finances to matters of workplace politics, social value, and misguided nationalism is never less than fascinatingly detailed.

Just as Ray seems to be furtively channelling the bittersweet, angst-ridden tenor of work by Western filmmakers such as Douglas Sirk or Elia Kazan, his characters too are beginning to allow innovations and fashions from the West to creep into their lives. Though The Big City is set in a specific time and place, its recognition of the idea that the world often changes faster than humans are able to adapt to it is universal and timeless.