As a 4K restoration of the 1970 classic, Sharmila Tagore-Star ‘Arneer Deen Ratri’ is displayed in Cannes 2025, here is a look at a forgotten details from a scene
In five decades of his release, Satyajit Ray’s ‘Arneer Din Ratiry’ (Dage and Nights in the Forest) returned to the Global Spotlight with his 4K restoration at the Cannes Film Festival 2025. As one of Ray’s most psychologically layered films, it continues to provoke both praise and intimacy. But a scene, which has long been observed for its cool talent, reveals a strangely unstable relationship with real life.
We are talking about a scene Memory game – A misleading simple parlor game was played by central characters of the film during his forest holiday. Participants in the sequence are about to repeat the growing list of names – real or imaginary figures – recollecting the order correctly, adding each new turn.
What reveals is a riveting sequence of leaving cultural names, strange stagnation, social friction, and unspecified stress. Selected names – often serve as cultural symbols, political leaders, film stars and literary figures – the psyche of each character, world visions and unconscious indicators of cultural goods.
But here is a strange part: The order in which the characters are abolished by the game reflects the real -life deaths of the actors who played them.
Also read: Sharmila Tagore recalled harsh situations during Arneer Deen Ratri: ‘I had a watchman’s room, Simi had a bungalow’
Arner Din Ratri Plot
The film, which found a permanent ovation in Cannes, is four urban male friends from Calcutta, who visit Palamau forests for the holiday. There, they face a contrasting world-rural landscapes include tribals and a gentle, high-class family, her daughter Aparna (starred by Sharmila Tagore), and daughter-in-law Jaya (Kaberi Bose).
Let’s go back to the memory back scene. As four friends and two women start the game, Kabe Bose was the first to end the first. Rabi Ghosh (Shekhar) was the next, followed by a committee nephew (Hari), who gives up, and then Subhendu Chatterjee (Sanjeev). Saumitra Chattopadhyay (Ashim) and Sharmila Tagore (Aparna) stood last two. Aparna is the most confident among all of them, and is ready to win against an unstable Asim, but surprisingly accepts the game voluntarily. It was later revealed through Aparna’s entry of Ashim that she actually recalls all the names completely, but chose to win.
Now consider this:
Kaberi Bose died in the first, earlier, in February 1977. Rabi Ghosh died in February 1997, Samit Bhanja in July 2003, Subhendu Chatterjee in July 2007, and Saumitra Chattopadhyay in November 2020. Shamila Tagore, the winner in everyone’s eyes, who comes out in the same scene.
This is a pattern that no script could predict. Certainly the only coincidence is the only coincidence, but in the context of a film that wrestles with the subjects of time, mortality, memory and confusion of citizenship, parallel looks strangely poignant. Especially because the memory game scene is a masterclass in subtext. Each name left the reflection of ego, desire, repression, and social hierarchy, which the characters take with them. In fact, the names form east and west, high culture and pop culture, forming a list of fragmented identity of colonized India.
As Arani Deen Ratri re -enters cultural conversation through her ear screening, it is worth seeing this persecution sequence again for strange predictions.
Also read: Sharila earns an ovation standing in the ear to Aarneer Deen Ratri with Tagore Beams
