Having been accused by Indian critics of ignoring the socio-political plight of the sub-continent, Satyajit Ray responded with typical humanist sagacity in this wryly satirical, gloriously literate, but deceptively discerning alfresco chamber play.
Each member of the young Calcutta quartet that heads off for a little R&R is a bourgeois stereotype, while each of the three women they encounter in a series of misadventures provides a calculated counterbalance to their big city amorality. It's amazing just how much Ray manages to say about creeping Westernisation and patriarchal complacency. But that was the lesson he learned from his master, Jean Renoir.