{ "id": "epwcgwjq25", "slug": "mahanagar", "title": "Mahanagar", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.indian-cinema", "label": "Indian films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.indian-cinema" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.indian-cinema.films-in-other-indian-languages", "label": "Films in other Indian languages", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.indian-cinema.films-in-other-indian-languages" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.ind.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.indian-cinema.films-in-other-indian-languages", "label": "India · 1946 to 2000: Films in other Indian languages", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.indian-cinema.films-in-other-indian-languages", "path": [ { "id": "geo.ind", "label": "India", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind" }, { "id": "geo.ind.t1946", "label": "India · 1946 to 2000", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1946" }, { "id": "geo.ind.t1946.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1946.culture" }, { "id": "geo.ind.t1946.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1946.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.ind.t1946.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1946.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.ind.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.ind.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.ind.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.indian-cinema", "label": "Indian films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.indian-cinema" }, { "id": "geo.ind.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.indian-cinema.films-in-other-indian-languages", "label": "Films in other Indian languages", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.ind.t1946.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.indian-cinema.films-in-other-indian-languages" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Mahanagar (The Big City), 1963 Bengali film by Satyajit Ray based on Narendranath Mitra's Abataranika; Madhabi Mukherjee as working housewife Arati in 1950s Kolkata; Silver Bear, Berlin 1964.", "snippet": "Mahanagar (The Big City), 1963 Bengali film by Satyajit Ray based on Narendranath Mitra's Abataranika; Madhabi Mukherjee as working housewife Arati in 1950s Kolkata; Silver Bear, Berlin 1964.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.indian-cinema.films-in-other-indian-languages", "markdown": "# Mahanagar\n\n**Mahanagar** (মহানগর; English release title *The Big City*) is a 1963 Bengali-language drama film directed by [Satyajit Ray](https://www.edgepedia.org/satyajit-ray), produced by R.D. Bansal, and starring Anil Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, and [Jaya Bachchan](https://www.edgepedia.org/jaya-bachchan), with a running time of 131 minutes[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/ad3d9968-a421-5567-8eef-b188483c646a/mahanagar). It was Ray's tenth feature film and his first attempt to depict the realities of contemporary life in his home city, Kolkata[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den). At the 14th [Berlin International Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/berlin-international-film-festival) in 1964, Ray won the Silver Bear for Best Director for the film[3](https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/screen/mahanagar-gets-technically-enhanced/).\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Release | September 27, 1963 (India); black-and-white Bengali film[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057277/) |\n| Source | Based on Narendranath Mitra's short story \"Abataranika\" (1949) and, to a lesser extent, \"Akinchan\" (1954)[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den) |\n| Cast | Anil Chatterjee (Subrata), Madhabi Mukherjee (Arati), Jaya Bachchan (Bani, her film debut)[1](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/ad3d9968-a421-5567-8eef-b188483c646a/mahanagar) • [4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057277/) |\n| Award | Silver Bear for Best Director, 14th Berlin International Film Festival, 1964[3](https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/screen/mahanagar-gets-technically-enhanced/) |\n| Setting | 1950s Kolkata, in a lower-middle-class joint family[5](https://bbclatestnews.pages.dev/bengali/articles/cv2dremepn3o) • [2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den) |\n| Restoration | 2K restoration re-released in Indian cinemas in 2024 after screenings at over forty festivals, cinematheques, and museums worldwide[6](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bengali/movies/news/satyajit-ray-film-returns-to-indian-screens/articleshow/113546904.cms) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Story and themes\n\nThe film follows the Mazumdar family: bank clerk Subrata Mazumdar, his wife Arati, their five-year-old son Pintu, Subrata's fourteen-year-old sister Bani, his father Priyagopal, a retired schoolteacher, and his mother Sarojini, all living in a small Kolkata apartment[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den). When the family's needs outstrip Subrata's income, Arati takes a job as a saleswoman of electric knitting machines. Subrata reminds his wife, in English and only half in jest, that \"a woman's place is in the home,\" but economic necessity compels him to back her[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den).\n\n**Work and identity.** The job transforms Arati from a timid housewife into a confident working woman, and her earnings change her standing in the household[7](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/bigcity/) • [8](https://inbreakthrough.org/satyajit-ray-mahanagar-review/). She tells her father-in-law that nobody sent her to work; it was her own decision and she enjoys it[8](https://inbreakthrough.org/satyajit-ray-mahanagar-review/). When Subrata loses his job as his bank collapses, Arati becomes the household's sole earner, and the film examines how the loss of formal employment unsettles his sense of masculine identity as breadwinner[9](https://www.fipresci-india.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2.-Debjani-Halder-Deconstruction-of-Men-and-Masculinities.pdf).\n\n**Race and solidarity.** Arati's colleague Edith belongs to Kolkata's Anglo-Indian community, a group the film shows facing discrimination from their boss, Mr. Mukerjee, who impugns Edith's moral character and dismisses her. Arati resigns in protest, a decision that throws the family into crisis since Subrata has just lost his job[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den). Critics have noted that the film was pioneering in treating race and racial discrimination, themes rarely featured in Indian films of the time[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den).\n\nThe ending leaves the couple with no income: Arati has quit, and Subrata, judging her action brave, walks with her into the city to look for work together[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den) • [10](https://www.deepfocusreview.com/definitives/the-big-city/). Some critics, including Penelope Houston, editor of *Sight & Sound*, found the conclusion clichéd and sentimental; the film scholar Chandak Sengoopta argues instead that its optimism reflected Ray's liberal conviction that individual conscience could challenge capitalism[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den).\n\n## Production\n\nRay had wanted to adapt [Narendranath Mitra](https://www.edgepedia.org/narendranath-mitra)'s writing soon after his debut *Pather Panchali* (1955), and the project came close to being his second film; difficulties of casting and finance delayed it through eight intervening films[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den) • [10](https://www.deepfocusreview.com/definitives/the-big-city/). Ray began searching for the ideal Arati in 1956 and found Madhabi Mukherjee, whose experience was minimal before the run of films she made with Ray[10](https://www.deepfocusreview.com/definitives/the-big-city/). Jaya Bhaduri, later known as Jaya Bachchan, made her film debut here as Subrata's teenage sister Bani, in her only film with Ray[4](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057277/).\n\nRay wanted the film's original English-language title to be *A Woman's Place*, a reference to the saying Subrata quotes to Arati[10](https://www.deepfocusreview.com/definitives/the-big-city/). The character of the father Priyagopal was largely Ray's own creation: he was named after a near-silent figure in \"Abataranika\" and remodeled from the schoolmaster protagonist of \"Akinchan,\" but the situations involving him were conceived by Ray, and some were later taken up by Mitra when he reworked \"Abataranika\" into the novella *Mahanagar* (1963)[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den).\n\n## Reception\n\nIn India the movie was highly praised, even though a controversy, later shown to be baseless, initially accused it of defaming the Anglo-Indian community; [Indira Gandhi](https://www.edgepedia.org/indira-gandhi), who at that time held the cabinet post overseeing cinema, was required to step in before it could go abroad for screenings overseas[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den). In Britain, Richard Roud wrote that the film approached \"absolute realism\"[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den).\n\nIts greatest popular impact came closer to home. When screened during a 1964 international film season in Dhaka, then in [East Pakistan](https://www.edgepedia.org/east-pakistan), enormous crowds including thousands of women queued for the three scheduled shows; after police beat more than a hundred people in a mini riot, organizers scheduled ten extra shows running consecutively over twenty-four hours[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den).\n\n## Restoration and re-releases\n\nThe [British Film Institute](https://www.edgepedia.org/british-film-institute) digitally restored the film in 2013 to mark its 50th anniversary, and a restored version re-released in Indian theaters in April 2014 under the PVR Director's Rare banner[3](https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/screen/mahanagar-gets-technically-enhanced/). A 2K restoration carried out by Pixion Studios and Cameo Media Labs returned to cinemas in Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi, and Bengaluru in 2024, screened in Bengali with English subtitles[6](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bengali/movies/news/satyajit-ray-film-returns-to-indian-screens/articleshow/113546904.cms) • [11](https://scroll.in/latest/1073519/andhra-pradesh-cm-defends-plan-to-turn-government-schools-into-english-medium-institutions). Criterion Collection released the film on home video as *The Big City* in 2013[12](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Mahanagar).\n\n## Place in Ray's career\n\nThe film foreshadows the themes of Ray's later contemporary Kolkata films: the impact of work and its absence on people, the strains of metropolitan life, and individual morality in modern capitalist society[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den). Sengoopta reads it as a way station in Ray's journey from a relatively sanguine liberalism toward the more conflicted worldview of his later work[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den). Madhabi Mukherjee's performance, followed by her title role in *Charulata* (1964), established her as the quintessential \"Ray woman\"[2](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den).\n\n## References\n\n1. [Mahanagar (1963), British Film Institute](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/ad3d9968-a421-5567-8eef-b188483c646a/mahanagar)\n2. [Chandak Sengoopta, \"The Big City: A Woman's Place,\" Criterion Collection (2013)](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/2871-the-big-city-a-woman-s-place%26lang%3Den)\n3. [Shoma A. Chatterji, \"Mahanagar gets technically enhanced,\" The Indian Express (2014)](https://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/screen/mahanagar-gets-technically-enhanced/)\n4. [The Big City (1963), IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057277/)\n5. [\"Satyajit Ray's five celebrated films,\" BBC News Bangla](https://bbclatestnews.pages.dev/bengali/articles/cv2dremepn3o)\n6. [\"Satyajit Ray's film Mahanagar returns to Indian screens,\" The Times of India (2024)](https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bengali/movies/news/satyajit-ray-film-returns-to-indian-screens/articleshow/113546904.cms)\n7. [Dennis Schwartz, review of Mahanagar](https://dennisschwartzreviews.com/bigcity/)\n8. [\"In this vast and great city, is there place for working women?\" Breakthrough](https://inbreakthrough.org/satyajit-ray-mahanagar-review/)\n9. [Debjani Halder, \"Deconstruction of Men and Masculinities,\" FIPRESCI India](https://www.fipresci-india.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/2.-Debjani-Halder-Deconstruction-of-Men-and-Masculinities.pdf)\n10. [Brian Eggert, \"The Big City (1963),\" Deep Focus Review (2018)](https://www.deepfocusreview.com/definitives/the-big-city/)\n11. [\"Behind the re-run of Satyajit Ray's 'Mahanagar',\" Scroll.in (2024)](https://scroll.in/latest/1073519/andhra-pradesh-cm-defends-plan-to-turn-government-schools-into-english-medium-institutions)\n12. [Mahanagar (1963), The Numbers](https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Mahanagar)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Indian films (individual works) › Films in other Indian languages*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/mahanagar", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/mahanagar.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Mahanagar\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/mahanagar. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Mahanagar](https://www.edgepedia.org/mahanagar)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/mahanagar](https://www.edgepedia.org/mahanagar). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Mahanagar\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/mahanagar. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Mahanagar, 1963 Bengali film by Satyajit Ray based on Narendranath Mitra's Abataranika; Madhabi Mukherjee as working housewife Arati in 1950s Kolkata; Silver Bear, Berlin 1964." }