DAYS AND NIGHTS IN THE FOREST: Summer Vacation with Satyajit Ray

Few filmmakers could make a movie that initially appears to be a casual boys’ trip comedy a la The Hangover before smoothly revealing itself as a masterful exploration of race and class, but few filmmakers have ever been as adept at the art form as Satyajit Ray. Based on the novel of the same name by Sunil Gangopadhyay, Days and Nights in the Forest follows four middle-class men from Calcutta on holiday together in the countryside, where the unfamiliar environment reveals uncomfortable truths about themselves. Newly restored in 4K by The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project and Film Heritage Foundation in collaboration with Janus Films, the film is packed with beautiful imagery and complex characters, played by some of Bengali cinema’s brightest stars, who are frighteningly relatable in their flaws.

(Would-Be) Kings of the Road

As the film begins, the quartet of hopeful vacationers is driving while gleefully reading a guidebook that tells them what they should expect in rural Palamu—with a particular focus on what the local tribal women are like, of course. Asim (regular Ray collaborator Soumitra Chatterjee) is handsome and confident, and expects everyone to comply with his desire for the best of everything. Sanjoy (Subhendu Chatterjee) works in management at a mill but nurses the idea that he is destined for deeper, more intellectual things. Hari (Samit Bhanja) is a cricketer trying to get over being dumped by a woman who didn’t approve of his shallow love letters. Meanwhile, Shekhar (Rabi Ghosh) compensates for being the least successful of his friends—he’s the only one who is currently unemployed—by being the funniest and most freewheeling.

source: Janus Films

The men arrive at a bucolic rest house and, determined to stay despite not having a reservation, bribe the watchman; they don’t consider the risk this poses to the watchman’s continued employment, let alone that he’s also busy caring for a sick wife. Later, when the group goes out drinking, Hari is drawn to the tribal woman Duli (Simi Garewal), believing her to be the embodiment of the stereotypes included in their guidebook (simple, open) and thus the opposite of the posh woman who broke his heart. However, the next day, the men spy two women of their own class out walking together, and all thoughts of embracing a rustic lifestyle (including their resolve not to shave for the duration of the trip) go out the window. The women—sophisticated, enigmatic Aparna (Sharmila Tagore) and her widowed sister-in-law, Jaya (Kaberi Bose)—strike up a friendship with the men, inviting them for meals and games and, eventually, a pivotal visit to the local fair. It’s here that the men go their separate ways and, when forced to look within themselves, realize that they are not the men they pretend to be.

source: Janus Films

People We Meet on Vacation

In many ways, Days and Nights of the Forest is a perfect hangout movie, filled as it is with scenes of attractive people sitting around talking about philosophical things…as well as occasionally getting so drunk that they dance in a car’s headlights on the dark road without considering who might be in the car. At one point, the men and women play a memory game together, in which each person must name a celebrity until the list is so long that no one can remember it; the scene unfolds in a way that is so strangely thrilling that you’ll find yourself watching with bated breath while also trying to play along. That the game’s final moments reveal so much about the contrast in character between Aparna and Asim (mainly, that her character is superior to his) is just further proof of Ray’s superior abilities as a cinematic storyteller.

Shot in high-contrast black and white by Ray’s longtime cinematographer Soumendu Roy, every frame of Days and Nights in the Forest is stunning, especially those that highlight the wildness of the scenery that surrounds and influences (really, almost intoxicates) the characters. The entire ensemble cast is excellent, rendering their characters fully recognizable as real people, but Tagore stands apart. While she is one of the most beautiful women ever to grace the screen, her appeal as an actor is more than skin-deep; she contains and conveys multitudes.

source: Janus Films

This is never more apparent than in Aparna’s final conversation with Asim, in which she reveals her own vulnerabilities while also forcing him to see how his self-absorption limits his ability to see how his actions affect others; it’s only when she mentions it that he feels guilty for not inquiring about the health of the watchman’s wife. Aparna’s depths inspire shallow Asim to become more worthy of her if they meet again upon their return to Calcutta, though whether he’s capable of such change is another thing altogether.

Conclusion

Lovely to look at on the surface, yet even more rewarding when you delve deeper, Days and Nights in the Forest is all too worthy of being revisited.

The new 4K restoration of Days and Nights in the Forest opens at Film Forum in New York on February 27, 2026.