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Bimal Roy |
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| A small Bengali film called Udayer Pathe (Hamrahi in Hindi) with a cast of unknown artistes, marked the debut of Bimal Roy as a director. This gem of a film was only a glimpse of what this brilliant director had in store for the Indian Film Audience. From the path breaking Do Bigha Zameen to the poignant Bandini, his films raised the bar for Hindi Mainstream Cinema. |
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| The Journey of the Artist |
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 The decline of the Calcutta film industry forced many young talented artists to migrate to the new land of dreams, Bombay. Roy too embarked on his second migration (the first one being his journey from East Bengal to Kolkata) to fulfill his dreams. Roy along with a host of young talented film technicians, Hrishikesh Mukherjee (who was later to become one of India’s most loved directors), Nabendu Ghose, Kamal Bose, Asit Sen and later Salil Chaudhury, overwhelmed the Hindi Film Industry with their talents. Their quick success in Bombay can be attributed to the support system within the team and also to their immense need to make a mark. The humiliation of being uprooted from ones owns land made them determined go-getters. Within a span of two years of setting his foot in Bombay, Bimal Roy’s first film Maa was released by the illustrious Bombay Talkies.
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| The Neo Realist Roy |
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| Very soon, in fact within a year, Bimal Roy was ready with his dream project, the revolutionary Do Bigha Zamin . This poignant tale of a farmer struggling to survive the industrial revolution was inspired by the work of Italian Neo-Realists like Vittrio De Sica. Many claim that the film is semi autobiographical. This film was universally hailed as India’s first neo-realistic film and many awards were conferred to it. In the Cannes and the Karlovy Vary festivals in 1955-56 it received standing ovations. Bimal Roy the director had arrived. |
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| The Versatile Genius |
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| Bimay Roy as a director, refused to be constricted to any particular genre of filmmaking. He wanted to experiment with different styles and subject but always made it a point to take up subjects that delved into human and socio relationships. His next film Parineeta, was more of a feminist statement than anything else. The heroine, Meena Kumari in the movie, is one of the first female characters to exercise personal choice in terms of marriage, on the Indian Screen. Biraj Bahu is another case point, here the protagonist opposes the evils of the patriarchal society and triumphs in her endeavor. In Parakh he welcomes the new society in the most optimistic light. His Devdas in 1955 based on Sarat Chandra’s classic, was a comment on the oppressive stand of the Indian Society on the issue of Love Marriages. One can never accuse this filmmaker of being stuck in a groove like most of the so called talented filmmakers of today. If Devdas was a soulful ode to immortal love , his next film Madhumati was a frothy departure with a twist in the end. This film was undoubtedly the most commercially successful one of his career. |
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| The Dark Complex Roy |
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| In the later phase of his career Bimal Roy films grew darker and most definitely more complex. His though provoking study of situations and characters was multilayered and textured making them a delightful watch. Most of his protagonists in this phase were people on the fringes of the society or iconoclasts. He didn’t shy away from portraying flawed character (Nutan’s character in Bandini was a murderer) but he always ensured that the human spirit triumphed all adversities in his films. He gained a reputation for casting actors in roles that were contrary to their images. Sunil Dutt the popular action star in Sujata played a sensitive young man who is on a mission to rehabilitate a young errant girl. Similarly Dharmendra in Bandini plays a sensitive jailor who falls in love with a girl with a dark and mysterious past. Indian Cinema owes many firsts to Bimal Roy and the least of it is sensitive filmmaking.
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