Too often a work of art is reduced to a single theme or narrative. While I cannot fully explain why this happens, the most obvious reason is that the obvious reaps attention. Such is the case with Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar (The Big City), a film that, despite receiving rave reviews since its release, seems to have received deeper critical attention.

Set in 1950s Kolkata (then Calcutta), an extremely volatile decade following the partition of India, Mahanagar is a drama about a struggling middleclass family. No longer can the man of the house be the only earner and support a family that also includes his parents and sister.  The woman also has to step out, even at the cost of upsetting the tradition. While a premise like this might seem straight out of a Bollywood snoozer, Mahanagar is the work of an accomplished artist, where things are never quite predictable, nor do the characters go through sweeping transformations due to a single event or revelation. Instead, revelations are implicit in how the characters respond to their circumstances.

Take, for instance, the scene where Subrata (Anil Chatterjee), after allowing his wife Arati (Madhabi Mukherjee) to work—much to the disapproval of his parents—has her sign a resignation letter just because his ego is hurt seeing her thrive in her work. The scene is swift and there is no protest on part of Arati; for her, it’s just a part of her accepted reality. Moreover, she had taken the job because she wanted to support her husband, even as she grew to love it in the process. This is an important distinction, for a conventional feminist portrayal would have showcased this job as a symbol of freedom existing outside of Arati, as a totalizing reality, rather than a newfound reality that was co-created by her—one that had, in fact, become a part of her. […]