Biography of Mrinal Sen

(May 4, 1923 - December 30, 2018)

Mrinal Sen is considered a great film director of Indian cinema. He was born in 1923 at Faridpur, now in Bangladesh. He studied Science in Kolkata before he joined the Communist Party of India. At this time, he read voraciously on films and aesthetics.

His early films were heavily influenced by Marxist ideals. His films then experimented with themes of marriage in urban middle-class families. His films 'Baishey Shravan’, a tender love story that ends in a famine and 'Punascha', which explored the problems that arouse in the Indian household when the wife goes to work, were quite remarkable.

With his films 'Ek Din Pratidin' and 'Kahrij', Sen entered the most creative phase of his career. His films are masterful explorations of middle-class morality, the structure of everyday life and its oppressions. Mrinal Sen's 'Bhuvan Shome', with its austre style, sardonic humour and expressionist exploration of the politics of the middle class, is a landmark in the modern Indian cinema.