New acclaim for Mrinal Sen

Sen, 82, will be conferred the award by President A P J Abdul Kalam at the annual national film awards function in New Delhi on February 2.

The film-maker, who made his debut feature film Raat Bhore, shot into national and international fame with his first Hindi film Bhuvan Shome with late Utpal Dutt in a lead role. The film had earned a top national award in the late 1960s.

Sen made most of his feature films in Bangla and a few in other languages: Hindi, Telugu and Oriya. His last feature film Aamar Bhuvan, released a few years ago, received high critical acclaim.

His Kharij, starring Mamata Shankar and Anjan Datta, walked away with the jury prize in 1983 in the Cannes, Venice, Berlin and Karlovy Vary International Film Festivals. The film is the story about the guilt feeling in a middle class Bangalee family in Kolkata when their domestic help dies of suffocation while sleeping in the kitchen of the apartment.

Born on May 14, 1923 in Faridpur, Sen made a name for himself with Neel Akasher Nichey starring Kali Banerjee in lead role and went on to make an array of feature films in the decades to follow.

Known for his pronounced Left ideology, Sen's political views come out sharply, somewhat loudly too, in his films like Padatik, Interview and Kolkata Ekattor His first and only Telugu film Oka Uri Katha, starring Mamata Shankar in a lead role, is a poignant human document of farmers' exploitation by landlords in a village in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

Among other feature films by Sen, who has also made a number of documentaries, are Genesis, Mahapritihivi, Chaalchitra, Ek Din Protidin, Akaler Sandhaney, Parasuram, Khandahar (in Hindi), Ek Din Achanak (in Hindi) and Antareen starring Dimple Kapadia and Anjan Datta.

The 1980s marked a distinct turnaround in Sen's work as his films concentrated more on the middle class with its positive sides, follies and contradictions and how the prevailing socio-political milieu impacts on human relationships in this class. All these traits of Sen's films are most evocatively and artistically expressed in Ekdin Protidin (And Quiet Flows the Day), starring Mamata Shankar, Sreela Majumdar and the director's wife Geeta Sen, considered one of the best made by the director.

Sen has always been stirred by the political developments in India and abroad and he has never hesitated to reflect this in his work be it the fall of Communism in East Europe (in Mahaprithivi), Naxalite movement in Kolkata Ekattor and Gujarat riots in Aamar Bhuvan.

A recipient of Padma Bhushan, a civilian award given by Indian government, Sen was a nominated member of Rajya Sabha, upper house of Indian Parliament, from 1998 to 2003.