In honor of the centenary of author Rabindranath Tagore's birth, Satyajit Ray made this feature in 1961 based on three Tagore stories. (When it was released in the West, the film was shortened to two stories.) The first story, The Postmaster, concerns a young man from Calcutta who lands a job in a remote village. He is looked after by an orphan girl, and his eventual departure causes an unexpected tragedy. The Conclusion (Samapti) features Aparna Das Gupta (now Aparna Sen) in a comedy, a kind of Indian “Taming of the Shrew,” in which the village tomboy revolts against an arranged marriage on the night of her wedding.
“Ray has rightly been compared to Renoir, for only Renoir has a similar capacity to show people as simultaneously funny, wrong-headed and intensely likeable. Visually, Two Daughters has less to offer than the Apu Trilogy or the supremely beautiful Devi. Its strength stems rather from its humor, which is the most vigorous that this director has yet given us. Ray achieves his jokes in the same way as he achieves all his other effects, without straining. He relies considerably, but by no means entirely, on the facial expressions of his marvellous actors...” Monthly Film Bulletin