Product Details

• Actors: Padmadevi, Pradip Mukherjee, Robi Ghosh, Santosh Dutta, Kalyan Chatterjee
• Directors: Satyajit Ray
• Format: Color, Subtitled, NTSC
• Subtitles: English
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: September 2, 1997
• Run Time: 135 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304587422
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #37,997 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video

This 1975 Satyajit Ray film may be only for diehard fans. While Ray may have had a social or political agenda in some of his other films, he was clever enough to keep it hidden. Here, it sticks out and the film suffers from the "preachy" attitude of the script, especially during the first half. If you can stick with it through to the end, you'll find a flawed but ultimately compelling portrait of corruption in a big city.

Somnath Bannerjee (Pradip Mukherjee), a member of the elite Brahmin caste, fails his history exam because the man hired to grade them can't read his small handwriting. Somnath searches for a job for over a year. When he finally does get an interview, the big question is "What is the weight of the moon?" He tries to argue that this has nothing to do the job, but is dismissed. He ends up as a "middleman" buying paper products and reselling them at higher prices. His father is deeply dismayed because family members traditionally don't engage in sales. One by one, Somnath is taught the harsh lessons of doing business in a setting where nothing matters but closing the deal. Ultimately, he stoops to blackmail, with the sister of his best friend as bait.

Based on the novel Jana Aranya by Mani Shankar Mukherjee, Ray wrote the screenplay and the music as well as directing the feature. --Luanne Brown

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Life's Defining Moment, April 9, 2001

By	Little Dorrit "ldorrit" (WA state) - See all my reviews

I love Ray's films and this is one of his best. How does a country, a city, a company, a man, become corrupt? This is the story of one man's defining moment when he stands at the edge of the abyss and must decide which path he'll take.

The story begins with a scene of this young man taking his university exams and when given the opportunity to cheat, makes the decision not to. So we start with an honorable person of principal and by the end of the film he is given another opportunity to make another decision that will change his life forever.

This film shows us all of the challenges, disappointments, roadblocks that young people in this time and place experienced and does so very effectively. We share his frustration, his confusion, his hope and his joy when he believes he has found one pathway to the bright tomorrow he seeks.

And as each of the shining prospects turns into something other than what he thought he was choosing, we see his struggle to convince himself that things aren't what he is afraid they might just be. Until the facades drop all together and he is left looking at the ugly reality of the situation he confronts.

As always, Ray takes one man's experience and successfully translates it to the world at large. Which fork will he take? I hope you will see it and find out.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very thoughtful movie whose relevance transcends time, August 7, 2000

By	Sandeep K. Shukla (Santa Clara, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

The first time I watched "The Middleman" was back in the eighties on T.V in my home town Calcutta. Very few movies leave a long lasting impression on me, and this is one of those few. Set in Calcutta, India, in the days of economic uncertainty in the post independent India, the main character passes his College degree exam, and tries for a job. He is torn between idealism of his father, who wants to see him as a scholar and intellectual, and honest professional, and the realities of the economy and the job market situation, he struggles to make a living. He gets in the business of order supply, which intrinsically seems to involve lies, corruption, humiliation and betrayals of small kinds. But all those small but impactful daily events transforms him, he learns to get used to the ways of middleman, until he gets in a situation where in order to win a order supply bid, he had to arrange for a prostitute for the business man empowered to make the decision. This puts him in moral dilemma and this dilemma sharpens to an extremely painful climax when he discovers that the girl who he is going to supply was the sister of his best friend. The last scene when he comes back home, with a look of a real middleman entrenched in misery of moral dilemma, the difficulty of not able to see his caring sister-in-law in the eyes, is particularly telling of the inner struggle and the helpless submission to the reality. This movie brings out our eternal struggle within ourselves between compromise and the idealism, between trust and self-deprecation, between faith in the system, and nonchalance.

Although set in 1960's contemporary Calcutta, the appeal of this movie, and the underlying conflicts, and realism, transcend time and locality, and it is a must see for any one interested in understanding how we human beings progress in our lives or digress and be ridden with conscience , and conflicts.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A moving story, February 19, 2000

By A Customer

Finished just before India's state of emergency, The Middleman is an angry indictment of a society that has sold its moral compass, cheapening the value of individual human life. At the time of its release, many Western critics called this a satire; though it is often funny (and ruthless in its social criticism), The Middleman is ultimately a tragedy. The best performances of any Ray film. Wonderful street photography and a highly effective score, both by Ray.