The Big City - Criterion Collection (Blu-ray)

The Big City - Criterion Collection (Blu-ray)The Big City, the great Satyajit Rays first portrayal of contemporary life in his native Kolkata, follows the personal triumphs and frustrations of Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee), who decides, despite the initial protests of her bank clerk husband, to take a job to help support their family. With remarkable sensitivity and attention to the details of everyday working class life, Ray builds a powerful human drama that is at once a hopeful morality tale and

The Big City, the great Satyajit Ray’s first portrayal of contemporary life in his native Kolkata, follows the personal triumphs and frustrations of Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee), who decides, despite the initial protests of her bank-clerk husband, to take a job to help support their family.

With remarkable sensitivity and attention to the details of everyday working-class life, Ray builds a powerful human drama that is at once a hopeful morality tale and a commentary on the identity of the modern Indian woman.

Region B Blu-ray: Australian compatible.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New, restored 2K digital film transfer, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• New interview with actor Madhabi Mukherjee
• Satyajit Ray and the Modern Woman, a new interview with Ray scholar Suranjan Ganguly
• The Coward (Kapurush, 1965), a short feature by Ray that also addresses modern female identity and stars Mukherjee and Soumitra Chatterjee
• Satyajit Ray (1974), a documentary short by B. D. Garga
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by scholar Chandak Sengoopta and a 1980s interview with Ray by his biographer Andrew Robinson