Do Bigha Zamin [dir. Bimal Roy]

It was heartening to see the 700-seater Regal cinema hall on a weekday evening full of young viewers lined up for a more-than-70 years old film. To make a confession, I had never seen Do Bigha Zamin (DBZ) in its entirety before, only selected clips on TV especially the cycle rickshaw race with its calamitous end. Said to be inspired by watching Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves, DBZ is a grounded drama about the downtrodden in society. Our protagonist Shambhu Mahto (an unforgettable Balraj Sahni) is a farmer forced to look for work in the city to earn enough to clear the mortgage on his farm, after he refuses to sell the land to the rich zamindar (Murad) for the construction of a mill. 

Shambhu lands in the sprawling chaos of Kolkata with his stowaway son Kanhaiya (Ratan Kumar), while his wife Parvati (Nirupa Roy) is left in the village with his ailing father. In the metropolis, they meet a motley of characters, some of whom - like the fiery-tongued slum landlady or the street-smart boot-polishing urchin Lalu (a young spirited Jagdeep, devoid of excessive buffoonery) are sympathetic enough to help them out. To put the money together before his repayment term ends, Shambhu works like a dog, refusing himself even basic necessities as a good meal or rest after an accident.

With Shambhu and his family's life Roy depicts the hardship of poor folk in the country, the struggle to make a living or hold on to their most meager possessions, while still trying to maintain a shred of dignity and avoid taking the path of crime. It is a sensitive and sympathetic tale helmed by someone that truly believed in the power of cinema for social change. Roy would later go on to make other striking social dramas like Bandini and Sujata; even his gothic melodrama Madhumati has a strong social backdrop of oppression by the privileged class.

The film's production design and cinematography are wholly married to the vision of social realism. Even the songs (composed by Salil Chowdhary) are an integral part of the narrative, with no extravagant escapist dream sequences. DBZ ends, as it should, on a tragic and poignant note: Shambhu finds himself fenced out of his own land after it is auctioned by the debt court, not allowed to even take a handful of dirt from the earth that he and his forefathers had tended for so many generations.

Kudos to the Film Heritage Foundation and Janus-Criterion for undertaking the 4K restoration of this classic. Largely free of any heavy damage and showing painstakingly calibrated contrast that reveals the vision of its makers, the restored version is a marvel.