Days and Nights in the Forest: Satyajit Ray

There are people much more intelligent and qualified than me who can expound on how Satyajit Ray's Days and Nights in the Forest demonstrates the literary technique of the carnivalesque. I am not sure I fully grasp the theory myself. So I can only speak on my own personal experience with this film by Bengali cinema's greatest master. The film follows four friends from varying social classes of Indian society who seek to escape into the countryside for a vacation. Their quest for societal detachment becomes a journey of self-discovery as each friend is forced to confront their own anxieties, fears, and desires. The film seems like a distant precursor to Joseph Vasquez's Hangin' with the Homeboys (1991), another film about four friends from different walks of life who seek escape from their daily lives via a brief Bacchanalian respite. Both films skillfully portray their main characters as complex, three-dimensional people who seem genuinely alive in a way that many movie characters don't. As always, Ray's work here is paced and measured. Some might be tempted to describe the film as "slow." But I was never bored with the film. There are many great directors whom I admire greatly whose work can occasionally be a chore to sit through; Dreyer and Bresson immediately come to mind. But Ray never taxes my attention span or my ability to stay awake. I hope that one day I can figure out why.

7/10