“Two
Daughters (Teen Kanya) is two
different stories by Rabindranath
Tagore: the first involves Nanda, a
postmaster in a small village in India, who
befriends his servant Ratan;
the second is about Amulya who decides
not to settle for an arranged marriage
and falls for a freedom-loving tomboy...” WHEN NANDA LEAVES the bustling Calcutta to take up a position as postmaster
of Ulapur, an isolated, malaria-infested village, he little realises how lonely
he will feel.
His servant, Ratan, is an orphan and she becomes so fascinated by his letter-writing
that he offers to teach her to read and write. Soon people from the village
come to hear tales of Calcutta and he attends musical evenings in the village.
But even though he seems to connect with Ratan, and she with him, he still misses
his former life.
Postmaster features Anil Chatter and Chandana Bannerji.
The second story is about Amulya, a student whose widowed mother wants to arrange
his marriage with a local girl, Nirupama, whose family seem keen for the match.
But Amulya has become fascinated by a freedom-loving tomboy called Mrinmoyee,
known as Tomboy Puglee, and he seeks to persuade his mother to write to her
family about his interest.
The film features: Soumitra Chatterji; aparna des Gupta; Sita Kukherji; Gita
Dey; Santosh Dutt; Belavani; and Debi Neogy.
Two Daughters (Teen Kanya) is a captivating and sensitively-produced Indian
film that cleverly explores relationships between two sets of people from completely
different backgrounds.
The film is Photographed by Soumendu Ray; Art Direction is by Bansi Chandra
Gupta; Music Recording and Re-recording is by Shyamsundar Ghosh; Associate Producer
is Amiyanath Mukherji. Two Daughters is Produced, Written, and Directed by Satyajit
Ray, who also wrote the music.
One of the most celebrated films in the history of Indian cinema, from arguably
one of filmmaking's finest auteurs, Satyajit Ray, Two Daughters is finally
making its way to DVD courtesy of Mr Bongo Films. Goddess (Devi) and
Two Daughters (Teen Kanya) are among Ray's finest and most moving works,
to be released as part of the Satyajit Ray series on 21 September.
• Two Daughters (Teen Kanya) is released
on DVD, courtesy of Mr Bongo Films, on 21 September (2009). Certificate: PG
| RRP: £12.99 | Running Time: 100 minutes.
"Two Daughters (Teen Kanya) is a captivating and sensitively-produced
Indian film that cleverly explores relationships between two sets of people
from completely different backgrounds" — Maggie Woods, MotorBar
"Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without
seeing the sun or the moon" — Akira Kurosawa
WIDELY REGARDED AS ONE OF THE GREATEST AUTEURS of 20th Century cinema and
the last of the Bengal Renaissance movement which started at the beginning of
the 19th Century, Satyajit Ray was a giant of Indian cinema.
Directing 37 films during his lifetime, he was also a
critically-lauded fiction writer, publisher, illustrator, graphic designer and
film critic, as well as the recipient of more than thirty Indian national Film
Awards, a winner of numerous international film festivals — including Berlin,
Venice and Cannes — and an honorary Academy Award recipient in 1992.
“Two
Daughters (Teen Kanya) is two