Jana Aranya (1975) User Reviews

Can't lick 'em, so join 'em

[smrana9377-831-371630 · 8/10 · 19 December 2010]

This film is unique among Ray's films in that it concludes on a note of profound despair. It shows us society at a stage beyond redemption, where people are helplessly sucked into a life without honor, hope or human dignity, and are beyond caring, having accepted rottenness as a way of life.

The film opens on a note of utter cynicism as we see a sight that most of us are familiar with--flagrant cheating going on in an examination. The invigilators close their eyes making routine hollow noises of "silence! silence!" perhaps for the gods or passers to hear. We have heard to students who go to the examination hall armed with a knife A man comes from outside and passes a sheet of paper with all the answers. The invigilators shrug indifferently as they pace up and down the aisle.

Somnath Banerjee is a bright boy, the hope and pride of his idealist father. However the examination results are far below his deserts, a result of clear mis-checking. But there is no remedy and he joins the sea of job-seekers where there are a hundred thousand applicants for ten jobs. His girl friend is forced to marry someone else because he has no means of support. His friend Sukumar languishes in destitution with his ailing family, depending on the earnings of a sister who, we are soon to learn, makes a living from the ancient profession. The two friends call on a legislator with their predicament, to be turned back with platitudes, tinged with sarcasm and even gloating.

He is drawn to business by an old friend of his. He starts buying and selling commodities on a commission basis and is soon earning decently, much to his family's satisfaction. Finally, to clinch a crucial deal he must arrange a woman for an important client. We are introduced to a series of brothels. The girl he manages to arrange is none other than the sister of his best friend Sukumar, who meanwhile has become a taxi driver.

The film would be melodramatic in lesser hands or if it was not so searingly close to realities. In the hands of Ray, it turns into a brilliant X Ray picture of a society which has hollowed out with canker.

As bleak a film as Satyajit Ray ever made

[murtaza_mma · 9/10 · 8 February 2016]

As bleak a film as Ray ever made and as brutally honest and disturbing as a film can be, Jana Aranya aka The Middleman, the final chapter in the master Indian filmmaker's highly acclaimed Calcutta Trilogy, jabs us in the small of our backs, rudely reminding us of the moral corruption that surrounds our society at large.

And, like most Satyajit Ray films, it is as relevant today as it was back then. Jana Aranya is not an easy film to watch and is certainly not meant for the faint-hearted.

For more on the world of cinema, please visit my film blog "A Potpourri of Vestiges".

Satyajit Ray ends 'Calcutta Trilogy' with a Cult Classic by exploring the horrible world of Brokers and PRO.

[SAMTHEBESTEST · 8/10 · 17 April 2021]

Jana Aranya / The Middleman (1976) : Brief Review -

Satyajit Ray ends 'Calcutta Trilogy' with a Cult Classic by exploring the horrible world of Brokers and PRO. Jana Aranya is the last chapter in Satyajit Ray's famous Calcutta Trilogy and without any doubts it is the Best Film in the trilogy. He saved the best for the last. It's a mind-shattering journey of a gentleman becoming a pimp and losing all the respect even in his own eyes. A bright and idealistic young man steels himself for the dog-eat-dog business world, only to flounder in a job market packed with thousands of other hopefuls. Once a gentleman, who hoped for an honest life loses self respect while making money and this boiling point surely burns your heart. Basically, the film portrays the economic difficulties faced by middle-class, educated, urban youth in 1970s India. Here we only see one of those thousands young fellas who battled tough times despite having capabilities and talent. The other factor is, the film shows a horrible reality of broker's business and PRO (Public Relations) which are still the most easiest trades to make money in India. But how many of us knows that how they actually deal with this, do they enjoy doing this job or were they forced into it? That's where the burning factor comes which left me stunned in the climax when he says, "I got it. The contract. I got it". And the burning silence is followed. Performances wise, Pradip Mukherjee is everything here. He gets a challenging character to play and he plays it like a master. The second best performance comes from Santosh Dutta, who plays a PRO, despite having less screentime. Dialogues, screenplay, cinematography and direction everything is top class. Nothing goes wrong about this film and therefore Jana Aranya is strongly recommended. Easily, in the Top 5 Films of Satyajit Ray. In short, A Cult Classic!

RATING - 8.5/10*

By - #samthebestest.

Satyajit Ray's great, sprawling dark comedy

[davidals · 10/10 · 18 September 2003]

It would be a bit of a stretch to call this a comedy - the context surrounding this film would be the social and political turmoil of Calcutta in the late 60s and early 70s. But there are a few moments of great gallows humor here, which adds to the sense of sharp realism - the job interview scene immediately springs to mind. More sprawling than most of the Satyajit Ray I've seen, MIDDLEMAN (JANA ARANYA) is nonetheless a remarkable film, further developing the sense of rambling, rhythmic slice-of-life feel (with many quiet moments of great moral insight hidden within) explored in his earlier KANCHENJUNGHA and the 1970 masterpiece DAYS AND NIGHTS IN THE FOREST. Here, Ray's Calcutta recalls Scorsese's rather similar treatment of New York in TAXI DRIVER - location becomes character, and a vast city acquires a symbolic and mythic significance; the two films (made within a few years of each other, and conceived at roughly the same time) could almost be seen as distant mid-70s companions, linked by somewhat similar social and political concerns.

It is a great shame that more of Ray's work isn't available in the US - a body of work equivalent to that of Kurosawa, Ozu, Fellini or Bergman in its' breadth and depth is largely going unseen and sliding into obscurity in the West, due to (presumably) tangled business reasons. One would hope that someone can resolve this unfortunate state of affairs in the near future.

One of Ray's starkest movies

[sanjeebmitra · 10/10 · 20 September 2009]

I have often felt irked by uninformed interpretations of certain works of art and the feeling was similar when I chanced upon a review here that announced Ray's "Jana Aranya", also known as "The Middleman", as a "dud from a master". The movie is most certainly wordy and full of urban dark humor that only a Calcuttan would be able to appreciate naturally. For the very same reason, a Western viewer would only be left to grapple with a bare minimum structure of the plot and would be at a loss to understand why people had to talk so much when the story simply said this: "A young man fares badly in his exams for no fault of his own, is unable to find himself a decent job, becomes a middleman and ultimately sets out to clinch the big deal." People talked so much because a lot of pet Bengali sentiments that mean nothing at other corners of the world are at play here. Terribly parochial and fragile concepts of morality, dignity and forthrightness are bludgeoned with Satyajit Ray's acid humor, albeit compassion and sensitivity worthy of Ray alone weave through the fabric of the story simultaneously. Somnath is hungry for success, but are his Victorian values strong enough to keep him from paying the terrible price for it? Ray bares his fangs and slashes the dark underbelly of Calcutta to spill its guts out. He shows us what his take on morality, immorality and integrity is. It's certainly one of his starkest films and one of his most important.

Astonishing

[sid-47 · 20 September 1999]

Quite probably the greatest Calcutta movie ever made, this is an astonishing work, especially to someone who has lived in that city before the current period of television and "modernism". How it will appeal to a non-Calcuttan is difficult to judge, and I am not bothered about it anyway, but I thank the master for this masterpiece.

Brooding and Thought-provoking..

[rtoac1 · 8/10 · 9 November 2020]

This is a Bengali film by Satyajit Ray.

The film is about how the promising youth in the country go stumbling for lack of opportunity. In a country where thus references and under-the-hand options rule the roost than merit.

Here the film progresses well with the protagonist meeting, giving up on the lack of jobs, meets up with an old acquaintance and starts a business. However to land a big project, he has to compromise on his morals..

But the thought-provoking part is how while his business itself is of a middleman, he loaths those middlemen who don't think twice of pimping if needed to get the job done.

It shows in the end that those who work, no matter what the work, will always get to hold their head higher.

I rated it 8/10 on IMDB.

Movie for Startup Enthusiastic

[tawhid-nuvan · 9/10 · 14 January 2019]

Jana Aranya is the last part of Calcutta Trilogy series; this movie shows typical West Bengal, India and Bangladeshi graduate's story after completing graduation. The demand for jobs is sometimes quite a few time more than the actual vacancy. Most of the fresh graduates have to go with this phase, Jana Aranya movie shows how Somnath end up with simple business which connects sellers with potential clients and receive incentives and showed some common trick to get the job done. Somnath finds out a middleman "Dalal" needs to find the week/sweet spot to make the business deal and most of the times it depends on the decision maker's personal interest.

This movie is inspirational as well ABCD for many who enthusiastic about the startup industry. Mr. Satyajit Rays most of the movies as relevant today as was back that period which prodigious.

A cult classic !!

[anirban-ghatak-662-726696 · 10/10 · 19 June 2013]

" The middleman is the last film on the Calcutta trilogy if we do not consider Mahanagar along the same genres. The protagonist Somnath is an educated unemployed youth struggling with his life in Calcutta. Somnath fails to get the distinctions in his BA because his answer scripts from university exam goes to a professor who had problems in reading his small hand writings with his broken borrowed specs. The result of which is a mere pass marks in graduation much to the irk of his retired father. Somnath's quest with job in corporate Calcutta develops a chain of frustration, regrets, new relationships and dark humors to the amusement of the audience. He finds no answers to stupid questions asked by interview board as "what is the weight of the moon". The only support he gets is from his affectionate sister in law who gifts him a new watch as he enters the challenging phase of job search.

To add to his worry his long term girl friend dumps him in order to seek stability for her by an arranged marriage. There is a strong melodrama on the break up scene which catches the audience. Probably women always break up with a sense of encouragement with the dumped men and Ray brilliantly uses Aprana Sen for this role of Somnath's ex girl friend. Destiny chances upon Somnath when he meets an old football game friend who offers him support to start his own business and to leave the false illusion of cracking a job interview. The rest of the story involves Somnath learning the business rules as an order supplier or middleman.

The script is adapted from the story of Sankar and portraits the missing ethics in corporate world very strongly. The use of PRO (public relations officer) and tricks for luring procurement managers forms the main learning curve for Somnath as his middle class values are put to test for these tricks. Finally Somnath gives up and decides to follow the road ahead at the cost of his internal soul sufferings.

Ray brilliantly uses the plot in a simple and lucid way and this film is not a complex film as "The competitor". The climax is the last 20 minutes when Somnath struggles with his PRO to get a women (escort) for the client manager and ends up hiring his best friend's sister who has unfortunately turned into an underground call girl forced by sheer poverty. Somnath commercial success and his moral failure marks the end of the film as he fails to make an eye contact with his sister in law in the last scene. Somnath's win's in the end but fails to earn the respect and admiration from himself or from his sister in law. Somnath is definitely gray in shade or rather gets converted from a white shade to grey as he fights back the whole system for his own metabolism and future of a better tomorrow. For sure this contrast makes the end of the Calcutta trilogy".

Best movie I've watched till now

[palashdebrayd · 10/10 · 29 June 2020]

Simply one statement would be enough. It hits your brain.

An attempted review for Jana Aranya - The middleman

[anirban-ghatak · 7/10 · 14 January 2013]

" The middleman is the last film on the Calcutta trilogy if we do not consider Mahanagar along the same genres. The protagonist Somnath is an educated unemployed youth struggling with his life in Calcutta. Somnath fails to get the distinctions in his BA because his answer scripts from university exam goes to a professor who had problems in reading his small hand writings with his broken borrowed specs. The result of which is a mere pass marks in literature much to the irk of his retired father. Somnath's quest with job in corporate Calcutta develops a chain of frustration, regrets, new relationships and dark humors to the amusement of the audience. He finds no answers to stupid questions asked by interview board as "what is the weight of the moon". The only support he gets is from his affectionate sister in law who gifts him a new watch as he enters the challenging phase of job search.

To add to his worry his long term girl friend dumps him in order to seek stability for her by an arranged marriage. There is a strong melodrama on the break up scene which catches the audience. Probably women always break up with a sense of encouragement with the dumped men and Ray brilliantly uses Aprana Sen for this role of Somnath's ex girl friend. Destiny chances upon Somnath when he meets an old football game friend who offers him support to start his own business and to leave the false illusion of cracking a job interview. The rest of the story involves Somnath learning the business rules as an order supplier or middleman.

The script is adapted from the story of Sankar and portraits the missing ethics in corporate world very strongly. The use of PRO (public relations officer) and tricks for luring procurement managers forms the main learning curve for Somnath as his middle class values are put to test for these tricks. Finally Somnath gives up and decides to follow the road ahead at the cost of his internal soul sufferings.

Ray brilliantly uses the plot in a simple and lucid way and this film is not a complex film as "The competitor". The climax is the last 20 minutes when Somnath struggles with his PRO to get a women (escort) for the client manager and ends up hiring his best friend's sister who has unfortunately turned into an underground call girl forced by sheer poverty. Somnath commercial success and his moral failure marks the end of the film as he fails to make an eye contact with his sister in law in the last scene. Somnath's win's in the end but fails to earn the respect and admiration from himself or from his sister in law. Somnath is definitely gray in shades or rather gets converted from a white shade to gray as he fights back the whole system for his own metabolism and future of a better tomorrow. For sure this contrast makes the end of the Calcutta trilogy".

"In an universe where there is no Apu series, I would call this Ray's best.. can be used as a textbook of ensemble cast"

[smkbsws · 10/10 · 16 September 2020]

Last movie from the city series. This was the second novel by Shankar which Ray adapted. But these are just mere trivia. In an universe where there is no Apu series, I would call this Ray's best. What do you need in a super cool film. Dark comedy - this is overflowing with it. Fuzzy ending; you will get shocked with the climax and will understand the meaning of depression from the last sequence. And, I had to mention it, ensemble. This flick can be used as a textbook of ensemble cast for those directors who celebrates the guest and cameo appearances. The character actors are so powerful in their scenes, you will even not be interested in what the hero is saying. And that is done purposefully here. References of growing interest for maoism in the veins of a city were shot in guerrilla style makes this a documents of time too. In that way, Ray completes his 'Socialist Trilogy' too :P.

The story gets much better later in the film but the pacing is like lead.

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 9 August 2012]

Before I get to the movie, there are a few things I should mention about the DVD for "The Middleman" ("Jana Aranya"). Like many other Satyajit Ray films I have seen from the 60s and 70s, it's in black & white. Apparently color films were very, very late coming to the Indian film industry--just like the Japanese and Chinese were still making silent films up until WWII. The print is also pretty fuzzy and has an annoying 'Shradha' (the distributing company) pasted across it. It's a pretty ugly looking film, that's for sure.

The film is about a young man named Somnath has taken a college exam. By a weird chance occurrence he's cheated out of the grade he's learned. This element of chance is something that will come into play a bit later in the film. In the meantime, he's graduated but finds the job marked glutted. Considering he didn't graduate with top honors, he's unable to stand out from the crowd and he spends a year looking for work. By chance, later he slips on a banana peel--and this ushers in an unusual opportunity. Now the non-Indian viewer might not understand the significance, but Somnath is from a Brahman family (from the top of the caste system) and the job he takes is NOT one a Brahman would normally do--it would be beneath him and dishonor his family. But he needs work and goes into business becoming a 'middleman'--a schemer who buys and sells practically anything to make a buck. The work isn't really bad at first, but later when he needs to give kickbacks and twist the truth, Somnath's father is heartbroken. But Somnath can live with this--after all, it's business. But, when he learns what he needs to do with one big client, it tests his mettle--what is he willing to do and not willing to do to make it in business?

There were some very positive things about the film. I agree with another reviewer who felt the father was an excellent and well-acted character. I also loved the big moral dilemma--this made the film end exceptionally well. However, I also should point out that this is a Ray film that is NOT for those unfamiliar with the man's work. That's because it's far from his best work--mostly because the pacing is like lead through the first half of the film. Slow and, I must add, it's hard to really like the main character, as he just seems to exist--and there's little with which to connect. Worth seeing and close to a 7, but it's not quite there.

A fairly disappointing picture from Ray

[zetes · 6/10 · 20 February 2003]

It starts out well enough, with a recent college graduate (Pradip Mukherjee) desperate for work. The montage of his looking for work is great, especially a scene where he is interviewed for a job and asked the most irrelevant questions imaginable, including "How much does the moon weigh?" He looks at the interviewer in disbelief. "What does that have to do with the job?" "I'll ask the questions here, son!" After several months of unemployment, he runs into an old friend who sets him up as a "middleman," where he can make a huge profit with very little effort. It's immoral, and Mukherjee can feel his soul slipping away. But he can't quit, because he doesn't want to disappoint his elderly father (Satya Bandyopadhyay, who gives the film's best performance). The main problem with the movie is that it's just too talky, and no one's talking about anything interesting. It wouldn't work if the characters were talking out loud about the moral dilemma; that would make the film too obvious. But they just talk endlessly about how they are going to go about their business and so forth. The movie just drags on forever, and then it throws in this utterly contrived ending. Well, I was almost happy for the contrivance, because, although false, at least it didn't involve endless prattle. It's quite overlong. I miss the economy of his better films. A dud by a master. 6/10.

Good but sometimes very unsatisfying

[Rodrigo_Amaro · 7/10 · 3 May 2011]

Last part of the Calcutta trilogy directed by Satyajit Ray "Jana Aranya" (aka "The Middleman") tells the story of Somnath (Pradip Mukherjee), a college graduate man who after a long battle for trying to find a job who'll turn out employed in a small tricky business as a supplier, he'll be known as a "middleman", where he must find the weakest points of his potential clients, many times being tested to do unethical things in order to succeed; things that go against his wishes and against his moral.

The movie takes off really nice, it presents a very relevant theme of a man trying to find a way for his life, trying to find a job in places where the people who are about to hire his services ask him dumb and pointless things like "How much does the moon weigh?" in order to see if he's able to perform his job well enough. It's absolutely dramatic to see Somnath's search through a crowded city where millions of people like him are also with the same problems. I couldn't stop thinking of how difficult and unfair things are in under developing countries (mine included even though the economic situation is getting better but things can change sooner or later) and how people like the main character must have a enormous sense of faith, persistence and struggle while trying to get a job and while doing it too, because it's not easy to change yourself and your values just because the money's good and it works to pay the bills.

That part of the movie was brilliant; the second act with Somnath in his first job is also great, although a bit confusing since it presents lots of characters and it's hard to keep track of who they are and what they represent: Somnath's bosses, friends, clients, etc. There's a wonderful subplot involving Somnath's father, a man who at first pushed his son into studies and work but later he realizes he'll be alone, and no one will look out for him, which is something that makes him turn back to religion again. Since most cultures are different than the Hindu culture where parents and sons in most families live together for longer times than ours, it's interesting the way the viewer can make a comparison between both worlds and think for a moment about the father's feelings about this whole situation.

The third and conclusive act is very unsatisfying, very confusing, and in a film that goes for two hours (long enough for a simple theme) it gets very tiresome with some annoying talky characters whose lines aren't interesting. Suddenly Somnath gets involved with sending prostitutes to one of his clients fulfilling the wishes of a greedy man who wants to make business with this client, but the whole trade is strange, confuse, played without urging a interest from us. That almost ruined the film. Luckily, it has its good moments, interesting cultural aspects and a relevant story even today, a tale about money and survival versus morality and principles. 7/10