Agantuk (1991)
Review of Agantuk / আগন্তুক (1991), directed by Satyajit Ray
Ever since ending my Bangla classes and tutoring, I’ve been chasing a semblance of the stable classes in the language I once had. Turning to Bengali and Bangladeshi food, culture, and media has helped filled this hole inside of me for the time being, and as I choose my movie and entertainment subscriptions, I’ve been particularly seeking out South Asian mediums of storytelling. Enter: Satyajit Ray.
I knew about Ray even before my deep dive into Bengali culture, and so when I finally started learning the language, it seemed like the perfect excuse to go and watch his movies.
Now more than ever I’m watching them, especially because they’re one of the few Bengali movies that are easily accessible with subtitles in the West, and it’s really helped pick up on dialect and vernacular.
That being said, let’s dive into this review of Agantuk.
When a long-lost uncle reappears in Kolkata, the family’s suspicion at this stranger rises.
Satyajit Ray is best known for his three films released in the 1950s: Pather Panchali, Aparajito, and The World of Apu. They follow the life of a single boy as he grows up, his father and mother die, and he becomes educated as an engineer in Kolkata, only to get lost in his own ambition.
Many years later, only a year before his death in 1992, Agantuk was released. It was Ray’s last feature film before his death, and was actually based on one of his many short stories he’d published during his lifetime.
The premise of Agantuk is simple. A family living in Kolkata gets a letter from a long-lost uncle they haven’t heard from in years saying he is coming back home to India. He has lived abroad in America as an anthropologist, but he wants to return and meets Anita, his only surviving relative, before moving on with his life.
And so this uncle returns and immediately arouses supicion. They think his Bangla isn’t good enough to be someone worth being in the family, nor does he seem like someone who is related to them.
They think that perhaps he isn’t actually who he says he is, but, at the same time, he has become friends with the son, Satyaki. This is a story we’ve heard a thousand times before: a relative suddenly appears to claim a part of an inheritance after hearing someone has died.
The mother of the family really puts this man through the ringer. She asks to see his passport and puts him through tests to prove who he says he is. Nothing provides the evidence she is seeking, and so they eventually bring in a lawyer. The lawyer, too, gets fed up with the situation and thinks that the man is a fraud. Spoiler: he isn’t.
Agantuk isn’t a film that’s full of frills or fancy things. It’s rather quiet and straightforward in its approach, which I think is a necessity when it comes to this kind of story.
You don’t need jump shots or specific editing to tell a story about a world that has changed from when you left it. The uncle left India at a time where family would have been accepted back no matter how many years it has been.
But the times have changed, so his family gives him scrutiny and presumes that this is a fake individual claiming to be their uncle. There is no warmth, only interrogation and comedy. Yet, at the same time, he embodies the old world he came from when he leaves behind the inherence they accused him of trying to steal.
Overall Thoughts
I think everyone should watch all of Ray’s films at the end of the day. Yes, they capture specific moments in Indian history and offer critical contexts for understanding the region where he came from (West Bengal), but they’re also beautiful films with overarching themes that are quite universal.
Agantuk might not be the film that would get you hooked onto Ray, however, because it’s a bit toned down and unfolds itself like a play. Some people might not be used to that style, so I recommend starting out with his earlier work—although this movie is indeed a good film.
