Screening of films by Satyajit Ray

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Federico Fellini’s film ‘Roma’, a virtually plotless autobiographical tribute to Rome, Italy, featuring narration by Fellini himself, will be screened in the city on Sunday.The classic film, a mixture of real-life footage and fictional set pieces, is being screened at Lenin Balavadi by the Banner Film Society as part of its festival on ‘Masters of Cinema’. The film begins with the director’s early years, arriving in Rome in 1931 during the time of Mussolini. Played by Peter Gonzales at age 18, the young Fellini moves into a tenement building and explores the wild characters living in the neighbourhood. The events that follow switch between the past and contemporary times, including a storyline that involves a 1970s film crew making a movie about Rome. He also incorporates segments of Roman history and problems in the government.  The film fest, however, takes off with Ingmar Bergman’s ‘Touch’, the story of a contented young wife and mother whose marriage is disrupted by an inexplicable attraction. Bergman regular Bibi Andersson plays Karin Vergerus, who is married to a prominent but stodgy surgeon, Andreas (Max Von Sydow, another of Bergman’s regular troupe). They live in a small town, and their marriage is peaceful but unexciting. Enter an itinerant American Jewisharchaeologist, David Kovac (Elliott Gould, in his first and last Bergman film). David’s freedom to travel and live life fully is intoxicating to Karin, who yearns for adventure. But Karin still loves her husband and her family, and she ends up feeling torn between conflicting desires.  Compared to earlier Bergman films which were packed with symbolism and psychological imagery,  ‘Touch’ is a very straightforward and uncomplicated story. ‘Rhapsody in August’, a tale of three generations and their responses to the atomic bombing of Japan, from Akira Kurosawa and Satyajit Ray’s ‘Abhijan’ are the other two films which will be screened at the festival. In ‘Abhijan’, Ray’s favourite actor Soumitra Chatterjee plays Narsingh, a taxi driver, who is a hot-tempered Rajput with a passion for his car, a vintage 1930 Chrysler.  The screenings are from 9.30 am on Sunday.