Eclipse Series 40: Late Ray (The Home and the World / An Enemy of the People / The Stranger) (The Criterion Collection) [DVD]

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Product Description ------------------- The films directed by the great Satyajit Ray in the last ten years of his life have a unique dignity and drama. Three of them are collected here: the fervent Rabindranath Tagore adaptation The Home and the World; the vital An Enemy of the People, based on the Henrik Ibsen play; and the filmmaker's final work, the poignant and philosophical family story The Stranger. They are complex, political, and humane depictions of worlds both corrupt and indescribably beautiful, constructed with Ray's characteristic elegance and imbued with autumnal profundity. These late-career features are the meditative works of a master. Review ------ The films directed by the great Satyajit Ray (Charulata) in the last ten years of his life have a unique dignity and drama. Three of them are collected here: the fervent Rabindranath Tagore adaptation The Home and the World; the vital Henrik Ibsen inspired An Enemy of the People; and the filmmaker s final film, the poignant and philosophical family story The Stranger. Each is a complex, political, and humane portrait of a world both corrupt and indescribably beautiful, constructed with Ray s characteristic elegance and imbued with autumnal profundity. These late-career features are the meditative works of a master. THREE-DVD BOX SET INCLUDES: THE HOME AND THE WORLD Both a romantic triangle tale and a philosophical take on violence in times of revolution, The Home and the World, set in early twentieth-century Bengal, concerns an aristocratic but progressive man who, in insisting on broadening his more traditional wife s political horizons, drives her into the arms of his more radical school chum. Satyajit Ray had wanted to adapt Rabindranath Tagore s classic novel to the screen for decades. When he finally did, in 1984, he fashioned a personal, exquisite film that stands as a testament to his lifelong love for the great writer. AN ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE In Satyajit Ray s absorbing contemporary adaptation of a play by Henrik Ibsen, a good-hearted doctor discovers that the serious illness befalling the citizens of his small Bengali town may be due to a contamination of the water at the local temple. His findings are met not with public gratitude but with rancor, along with sition from local authorities, who are afraid the news will keep visitors away. Stately in style but with a fiery debate at its heart, An Enemy of the People gets at the tension between religion and science in everyday Indian life. THE STRANGER Satyajit Ray s valedictory film is a multifaceted character study that contains both light humor and melancholy rumination. Written by the filmmaker, The Stranger involves a bourgeois couple who are bemused by the news that a man cling to be the wife s long-lost uncle will be coming to stay with them after years of travel. Though they fear he s an impostor, they tentatively let the man into their home, commencing an eye-opening emotional journey for the family. A humanist exploration of class, faith, and tradition versus progress, The Stranger is a bittersweet goodbye from one of the world s most important filmmakers. --Special features