THE MIDDLEMAN Movie Review

Jana Aranya

Even among diehard devotees of foreign film, the late Satyajit Ray remains one of the directors whose work is more frequently discussed or alluded to than actually experienced. A case in point is this 1975 tale of a university graduate applying for a job in Calcutta. Carefully and thoughtfully, the young man puts the finishing touches on his job application, seals the envelope and drops it in the mail. The next image Ray gives us is of an undulating wave, a mountain of mail—what appear to be thousands, if not tens of thousands, of applications literally pouring in to a single office, all representing graduates seeking the same position. With this quick and simple juxtaposition of hope versus reality, Ray begins his tale of this young man's journey toward ultimate self-reliance by way of disillusionment. Yet Ray's concern isn't unemployment as such but rather the human spirit and the various and surprising ways it so often survives, particularly in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. This is, he suggests, the story of his country, retold time and again in epics like The Middleman, in which humanity is forced to reach a truce with poverty, overpopulation, and loneliness. The very specificity of The Middleman’s Indian setting makes it obvious why Ray refused to make films outside of India. Tempted as he was, time and again, by offers to direct stories in other places (Hollywood included), he remained instead his nation's cinematic voice, proud to spin his miraculously eloquent stories without compromise or awkwardness.

NEXT STOP … Days and Nights in the Forest, Mahanagar, Taxi Driver

1976 131m/B IN Pradip Mukherjee. D: Satyajit Ray; W: Satyajit Ray; C: Soumendu Roy. VHS COL