Charulata

The film is the masterpiece from Satyajit ray. Even he confessed that it was his best work. The film is obviously the slowest that I have ever seen but its beauty lies in the fact that it gradually develops the relationships and emotions which is very difficult to be filmed. The story revolves around a woman named Charulata who has an inherent talent of writing but is not able to make use of this. She finds it very difficult to pass her time. Brother of her husband comes to live with them and then she started to find solace in his company. How relationships gradually changed as the time passed is portrayed beautifully in this wonderful film from a master filmmaker.

PROS:

The best thing I found in the film was the acting by Charu. Her eyes said more than was required. Cinematography too was nice and noticeable. The development of affection between two people is the key strength here. The film is definitely slow paced but it certainly kept me interested every minute. The thing that I liked in the cinematography most was the very slow movement of the camera around the two people when they were talking. The story is good and normal but the way it was perceived by Ray and his power to display it is fantastic.

MESSAGE: "Some things just happen. You cannot have control over them."

VERDICT: "Most recommended Indian Film."

As cinema appears to become ever more loud and brash, a work as delicate, subtle and understated as this may easily pass unnoticed, or mistaken as insipid. That is a great shame, since this is obviously a great masterpiece. Set in India in the last century, Charulata is trapped in a dull, stifling marriage. What starts off as innocent flirting with her brother-in-law soon sets off emotions that none of them, decent though they all are, can really control. There is no adultery as such - the betrayal is all in the mind - but the trust implicit in marriage is broken, and the future can only be faced with uncertainty.

This is a film of great grace and elegance, and also of considerable wit. But underneath the surface charm is a great seriousness. As always, Ray depicts the development of the characters with great insight and sensitivity, and coaxes fine performances from his cast. Western critics, in discussing this film, often draw parallels with the works of Chekhov or of Henry James, but Ray's inspiration was actually the great Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore, on whose short novel this film was based. As a piece of film-making, it is absolute perfection - a real gem.

Charulata is Satyajit Ray's masterpiece. No other movie is so brilliantly subtle, so timeless in quality. Indeed, Ray himself described Charulata as the only flawless movie he had directed.

Like the Apu trilogy, and many other Ray movies, Charulata deals with universal themes. Unlike the Apu trilogy, Charulata is set in an urbane, intellectual setting. This might be a turn off for some foreign viewers. When it was released in India in 1964, it was deemed controversial because of its depiction of an extramarital relationship. Yet no movie Ray made, not even the celebrated Apu trilogy, treats the themes of love, growth and loyalty with as much insight and sensitivity as Charulata.

Every scene in this movie is a gem, there are nuances in every movement, poetry in each look. Richly deserving multiple viewing, Charulata is the most perfect Ray movie.

Satyajit Ray is so good at staging his scenes from inside the minds of his characters, and I think it is why he was so successful at crossing over to foreign audiences - his empathy for the people behind his characters. He always reached to get beyond the simple exchange of dialog - watching a Ray film is watching him carefully invade the mind of his creations. Their flaws, their desires, their loves all seem so universal coming from his camera.

The photography is one of the greatest joys of Charulata, as in most of his films - the camera feels so free, so unbound to any set formula or rule of how to operate it, the joy of the operator (Ray himself) so apparent. It glides throughout all of his films, playing the eyes of some omniscient presence the characters are sometimes semi aware of. We are jolted when they look into the camera and sing, but because we have been already lulled into his world it feels completely natural that they would sing to us.

Charulata is slower, more obtuse than some of Ray's earlier films, and it feels longer. I was underwhelmed by the story, which I felt took too many left turns. But Charulata is a persistently fascinating film, particularly the almost out-of-body performance by Soumitra Chatterjee.

Satyajit Ray is one of my very favorite film makers, and I especially love his "Apu" Trilogy and "Home and the World", all four of which I would probably rate 10/10 or possibly 9/10. I saw "Charulata" ("The Lonely Wife") on videotape in the closing days of 1999.

"Charulata" clearly espouses S.Ray's distinctive style with very strong and realistic characters subtly developed, rich immersion into the period of the film (in this case around the time of the Indian Mutiny in the 1860s or 1870s, as I recall from history), having of a very few settings that are each portrayed in detail, and compelling and introspective camera shots. I am not surprised that some people are reminded, in viewing S. Ray's films, of Russian author Chekhov; I think of the paralysis of the characters in "The Cherry Orchard" and their juxtaposition against a lovely estate that they are in the process of losing.

In this film there isn't the same faded glory, but the lovely home decor and liberating gardens do contrast starkly with the paralysis of the wife. Bright and with clear literary talent, she is stuck as but a home fixture for her well-intentioned but unseeing husband. The husband has laudable passion for his newspaper and the truth, but is sadly ignorant of the companionship and time that any relationship, particularly a marital one, demands.

I would probably rate this film 8.5-9 out of 10. For me, it didn't have the strong emotion of any of the other films I mentioned above or the intricate story of "Agantuk" ("The Stranger", in color and which I believe was his last film). But overall, "Charulata" is another masterpiece film by Satyajit Ray with a quiet and humble, yet powerful, presentation, rather uncommon in contemporary film.