Watched Days and Nights in the Forest and thought ‘A personal favorite’

I just saw this recently at the 4K screening at the theatre. It’s brilliant. Satyajit Ray is not just a filmmaker but also a philosopher. Days and Nights in the Forest is almost like a road movie. Four friends go on a trip to escape from the bustling rat race of Kolkata. As the trip unfolds, things start to unravel within each character. And yes, masculinity is in crisis. They all have something they want to escape from, but in the end you can’t escape who you really are, wherever you go. Your character and personality follow you. Like in most of Ray’s films, the female characters are always complex and intelligent. They are often in complete control of the situation. Here it’s no different, especially with Aparna, played by the brilliant and adorable actress Sharmila Tagore. Aparna is an intelligent woman and mysterious at the same time. She clearly sees the crisis of masculinity and the male ego and she crushes them brutally.At the end of the film, I was reminded of the quote by Albert Camus: “Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”