mini-review marathon: the old-ish Bengali films, Soumitra edition

Abhijan True confessions: I don't think I understand this film. With the exception of the abysmal Shakha Proshakha , Satyajit Ray's films have overwhelmed me (in good ways), but this one...no. Reading what other people have to say about it indicates that some find the casting of Soumitra as the Rajput taxi driver Narsingh—a cultural identification the dialogues emphasize over and over again—unbelievable, while others think he played against his delicately-mannered Bengali type quite successfully. I don't know what mid-twentieth-century Rajput taxi drivers who find themselves in rural Bengal are supposed to be like, but a question of casting seems silly. If the English Daniel Day Lewis can play Abraham Lincoln 150 years later, why can't Soumitra Chatterjee play a fictional Rajput? The man is one of India's finest actors, especially under this director, and had already shown enormous talent in three of Ray's films ( Apur Sansar, Devi , and Teen Kanya ), so