The Partition of Bengal looms large over the cinema of Ritwik Ghatak. Sometimes, as in his wayward masterpiece Subarnarekha (1962), he reckoned with the suffering unleashed on the refugees of Partition; in other movies he approached the subject more obliquely. “Poetry and Partition: The Films of Ritwik Ghatak,” a landmark series at Lincoln Center last fall, brought together seven films, five of them excellent new restorations, allowing us to revisit this neglected, path-breaking artist. Made in response to specific political crises, his movies retain all their urgency four decades on. For the issues Ghatak grappled with—displacement, cultural conflict, state violence—have never really gone away in India.
Source : A New Look At Ritwik Ghatak’s Bengal
