Neorealism, the bra and the new Indian woman in Satyajit Ray’s The 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.

This article contributes to fashion and film studies outside of the mainstream cinemas of Hollywood and Bollywood. By analyzing the bra, the article extends Indian dress culture scholarship beyond the traditional sari to reveal a deeper set of postcolonial identity constructions. It also extends influential western scholarship on power dressing and intimate wear (corset, bra, lingerie and hosiery), and their links to modernity, sexuality and femininity, to a non-western context.