Neorealism, the Bra and the New Indian Woman in Satyajit Ray’sThe Big City

Through the filmic lens of West Bengali director Satyajit Ray’s masterpiece The Big City (Mahanagar 1963), this article focuses on the symbolic meaning of the bra in postcolonial India. It reveals the ways in which the semi-hidden bra in the film functions as a contested site of patriarchal Indian modernity versus Euro-Western modernity and, in the style of neorealist cinema, a utopia of postcolonial and postnational feminine agency. Through textual analysis, the article delves into the influences of Italian neorealist cinema on Ray’s aesthetic choices and compares power, dress and femininity across western and non-western contexts. It articulates cultural similarities and differences and how dream-like cinematic narratives of everyday practices of power dressing provide a window into neoliberal performativity and utopian ambitions for feminine agency during periods of modernization and change.