Company Limited [Seemabaddha] **** (1971, Sharmila Tagore, Barun Chanda, Paromita Chowdhury, Haradhan Bannerjee, Dipankar Dey) – Classic Movie Review 10,981

Indian film director Satyajit Ray’s witty, perceptive and incisive 1971 Bengali black and white social comedy drama Company Limited [Seemabaddha] examines Calcutta business life and the dilemmas of an honest hero afflicted by ambition.

Barun Chanda stars as Shyamalendu Chatterjee (Shyamal), a likeable but smug young Indian graduate, who pulls politically corrupt strings to save his career as a sales manager and aspiring company director in a British fan manufacturing firm in Calcutta. He is married to Dolan (Paromita Chowdhury), and they are visited for a few days by his astute younger sister-in-law Tutul (Sharmila Tagore), whom he takes on a tour of his local upscale haunts.

Sharmila Tagore and Barun Chanda as Tutul and Shyamal.

Satyajit Ray also writes the screenplay, based on the novel by Mani Shankar Mukherjee [Shankar], as well as the score. The themes are the fall-out from the rapid modernisation of Calcutta, the evils of rising corporate culture and greed, and the pointless futility of the rat race. The film won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 33rd Venice International Film Festival (tied with Cruel Sea) and the Golden Lotus Award for Best Feature Film at the Indian National Film Awards in 1972.

Company Limited is the middle part of the Calcutta Trilogy, begun with The Adversary (1970) and followed by The Middleman (1975).

The Adversary (1970) followed Days and Nights in the Forest.

Also in the cast are Harindranath Chattopadhyay as Sir Baren Roy, Ajoy Banerjee as Talukdar, Indira Roy as Shyamal’s mother, Promod Ganguli as Shyamal’s father, Haradhan Bandopadhyay, Haradhan Bannerjee, Dipankar Dey, and Harindranath Chatterjee.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,981

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