Natun Pata (1969)

Lyrical ruralist melodrama building on e.g. Satyajit Ray’s Samapti episode of Teen Kanya (1961) to tell the story of a mischievous 14-year-old young girl, Savitri, and how she is ‘tamed’ into marriage and conventional behaviour. Forced by her guardian-aunt to marry the son of the stationmaster, she runs away from her marital home but finds herself unwelcome everywhere. Her husband eventually rescues her just before she tries to commit suicide on a railway line (the railway track is used as a recurring symbol through the film). Disturbingly, the film presents this socially sanctioned form of child abuse as a painful but ultimately positive experience as the girl ‘grows up’ to be a woman who accepts her domestic and marital duties. Noted cinematographer Gupta’s debut as director.