New Restoration!

(Abhijaan / a.k.a. The Journey). Soumitra Chatterjee, star of The World of Apu, here plays a proud, troubled Rajput taxi driver caught between his high–caste background and his lower–class profession. This gritty melodrama was one of Ray's most popular films in his native Bengal, though it is little known elsewhere. "Abhijan represents a departure in Ray's career which can only be explained in terms of his periodic urge to break out of the confines of what he is best reputed to do....The world of taxi drivers and smugglers and kept women is as far removed from Ray's middle–class experience as anything could be....Bombay's front–rank star Waheeda Rehman('s) seduction scene in which she sings, dances, cries, and tells her life story - all within a few minutes of long takes-is memorable" (Chidananda Das Gupta, The Cinema of Satyajit Ray).