I haven't finished it but I had fun with the 1988 TV version of the Mahabharata. The pace is slow enough that it's probably good for language learning. A little weird that there aren't Hindi subtitles for this playlist but they should be available somewhere.
MUBI has several classics of Parallel Cinema, but that includes a variety of languages and all the ones I've seen and would recommend are in Bengali. Shyam Benegal did Hindi films (usually) with Marxist themes, so he might be a good one to check out.
Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen are the big ones. Ritwik Ghatak's supposed to be great, too, but I haven't seen as much of him.
Ray - the Apu Trilogy, The Music Room, Charulata, The Big City, all masterpieces. The Coward and The Hero are very good, too. Those are all on the Criterion Channel; the ones MUBI has tend to be his later films (which I haven't seen but I'm sure are still good; the man was incredible). MUBI also has The Chess Players, his one Hindi film.
Sen - the Calcutta trilogy, In Search of Famine, Khandhar. I just got into him recently and would like to see more.
Sen was a Marxist, and I think Ghatak was as well. Ray was a liberal but his films have good politics.
I haven't finished it but I had fun with the 1988 TV version of the Mahabharata. The pace is slow enough that it's probably good for language learning. A little weird that there aren't Hindi subtitles for this playlist but they should be available somewhere.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOnLo8VXxAz6h_0a2qYx-Dp4WQNqzVbb5
MUBI has several classics of Parallel Cinema, but that includes a variety of languages and all the ones I've seen and would recommend are in Bengali. Shyam Benegal did Hindi films (usually) with Marxist themes, so he might be a good one to check out.
This looks great, thank you!
I would love to hear those recommendations for bengali movies though haha
Satyajit Ray and Mrinal Sen are the big ones. Ritwik Ghatak's supposed to be great, too, but I haven't seen as much of him.
Ray - the Apu Trilogy, The Music Room, Charulata, The Big City, all masterpieces. The Coward and The Hero are very good, too. Those are all on the Criterion Channel; the ones MUBI has tend to be his later films (which I haven't seen but I'm sure are still good; the man was incredible). MUBI also has The Chess Players, his one Hindi film.
Sen - the Calcutta trilogy, In Search of Famine, Khandhar. I just got into him recently and would like to see more.
Sen was a Marxist, and I think Ghatak was as well. Ray was a liberal but his films have good politics.
Thank you so much! I'm really not that familiar with Indian movies so this helps out a lot 😊