Mrigaya

aka The Royal Hunt 1976 119’ col Hindi d/co-sc Mrinal Sen p Rajeshwara Rao pc Udaya Bhaskar co-sc Mohit Chattopadhyay st Bhagavati Charan Panigrahi c K.K. Mahajan m Salil Choudhury lp Mithun Chakraborty, Robert Wright, Mamata Shankar, Gyanesh Mukherjee, Sajal Roy Choudhury, Samit Bhanja, Ann Wright, Sadhu Meher, Anup Kumar

After a series of stylistically complex, politically oriented experiments with modes of cinematic storytelling, Sen achieved this controlled yet seductive allegorical tale shot in vibrant colours. Set in the 30s in Orissa with echoes of the Santhal revolt, a tribal hunter, Ghinua (Chakraborty) feels a kinship with a middle- aged British colonial administrator (Wright) who is equally passionate about hunting and perhaps also attracted to the vigorous young man. Protected by colonial notions of law and order, the moneylender Bhuban Sardar (Meher) pursues a tribal rebel (Bhanja) and legally murders him, taking his head to the Administrator for his reward. When Ghinua’s wife (Shankar) is seized by the greedy moneylender in lieu of payment, the young man hunts down the villain and proudly takes the villain’s head as a hunting trophy to the British officer, claiming he has rid the jungle of its most savage beast. The young hero in his turn becomes the prey of colonial justice. Made during the Emergency, the film’s ramifications go beyond the depiction of a clash of cultures, advocating resistance against the imposition of an administrative tyranny that ends up recompensing the perpetrators of injustice. First major role by Mithun Chakraborty, later a Hindi cinema star associated with disco musicals.

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