Company Limited
(Seemabaddha)
Screening on Film
Directed by Satyajit Ray.
With Barun Chanda, Paramita Chowdhury, Sharmila Tagore.
India, 1971, 35mm, black & white, 112 min.
Bengali with English subtitles.
Print source: Academy Film Archive
With Barun Chanda, Paramita Chowdhury, Sharmila Tagore.
India, 1971, 35mm, black & white, 112 min.
Bengali with English subtitles.
Print source: Academy Film Archive
The second film in Ray’s Calcutta Trilogy, Company Limited reflects the social and political mood of the times. While political violence is kept largely in the background, the film’s protagonist, a rising young executive in an electric fan factory, struggles with his ambitions and the corrupt choices that make him company director. Accusations that Ray’s films were politically insensitive seem misplaced when considering this shrewd satire of the American-styled business world of Calcutta. Its realist depiction of the new urban culture recognizes the prices that culture extracts, while maintaining the humanism which Ray demonstrated in his renowned Apu trilogy.
