P.C. Barua

The simple-minded Rajat (Barua) loves neighbour Jayanti (Menaka Devi). He is advised on how to court her by his streetsmart cousin Bishwanath (Sanyal) and Bishwanath's friend Samir (Bannerjee). Bishwanath and Samir try to get Rajat's miserly guardian Bagalcharan (Choudhury) to loan them money so that Samir can make a 'European-style art film'. The guardian is admitted to the clinic of a doctor Gajanan where he falls into the clutches of two professional crooks Natoraj (Indu Mukherjee) and Supta (Molina Devi). Supta wants Rajat and they try to kidnap her...

Melodrama about lineage and property questions. Nikhilesh (Barua) loves heiress Indira (Jamuna). A poor orphan girl, Radha (Menaka Devi), arrives claiming to be Indira's stepsister and therefore part inheritor of the family estate. Indira agrees to share her inheritance but then Radha makes a play for Nikhilesh. Ultimately, Radha turns out to be the real and sole heir. Love proves to be stronger than material possession as Indira and Nikhilesh get married and Radha finds happiness with Ratan, a man she had known and loved during her days of poverty. As each character returns to the class of his/her birth, the message hammered home is a warning to people never to transcend their social status.

Manoj is from the aristocratic class but has some sort retrograde amnesia; he belongs to the upper-class but is also an outsider, something that enables the possibilities of movement across the class-lines for him. This trope is essential for Barua to articulate the criticism of the indolent upper class in the film. Thus Manoj is both an object of criticism and ridicule while also being one of the critics.

This classic adultery story tells of an artist, Prasanta (Barua) presented in the stereotypically romantic image: dedicated to his vocation, paying no heed to his scandalous reputation (he paints nude models) and with a cavalier attitude to his conservative father-in-law's (Choudhury) demands for a good social behaviour.

Devdas, the son of a zamindar, and Parvati, his neighbour's daughter, are childhood sweethearts. However, class and caste differences prevent their marriage. Devdas is sent off to Calcutta, while Paro is married off to an aged rich widower. In Calcutta, as remorse drives him to alcohol, Devdas meets Chandramukhi, a prostitute. All Indian prints of this Bengali version were destroyed in a fire that ravaged New Theatre’s studios. Today, only one copy of the film survives which belongs to the Bangladesh Film Archives. Of that copy almost forty percent is destroyed.

Bengal 1983

For the first time in Indian cinema, flashback was used for storytelling.

The poor but educated Mahim and his childhood friend, the rich but conservative Suresh, both fall in love with the same woman, the liberated Achala. Mahim marries her and they move to a village but she cannot forget Suresh. Her smouldering unhappiness takes the form of a resentment towards the orphaned Mrinal, raised by Mahim's father, and receives a dramatically visual embodiment when their house burns down. Mahim falls ill, is rescued by Suresh and nursed back to health by Achala. On a train (a metaphor for the irreversibly linear course of life) to a health-resort where Mahim is supposed to convalesce, Suresh on a rainswept night gives in to temptation and elopes with Achala. At the end of the film, there is a dubious reconciliation as Achala is shown following Mahim's 'good' traditionalism with Saratchandra's barely concealed hostility towards Achala's liberated Brhamo Samaj upbringing.

Shapmukti

Uttarayan

Mayer Pran

The wealthy, self-obsessed, and possibly crazed Manoj (Barua) is sent by his concerned family to the rural estate of his future father-in-law. Along the way, however, he gets lost and soon finds himself taking shelter in the abode of railroad stationmaster whose beautiful, down-to-earth daughter, Meena (Kenan Devi), Manoj finds irresistible. When his haughty, progressive-minded fiancee gets wind of this, she freaks out and soon there is a showdown between the two women. In the aftermath, Manoj finds reason to go with his heart and marry Meena.

Ranee

Subah Shyam

Ameeree

Last film of P. C. Barua