A Esposa Solitária

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.

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."

Satyajit Ray's Charulata (1964) is considered to be a masterpiece and monument of timeless art and is also accepted as one of the best ever adaptations of a literary piece. The film is an adaptation of a short story named Nashtaneer by Rabindranath Tagore. This review contains Ray's subtle use of metaphors while handling the plot which deserves appreciation along with its other technical perfections.

The metaphors used in this film are countable but very much catchy and pleasant if related properly with each other. Ray successfully employed the metaphors within the constraint of film techniques. The mentionable metaphors are Charu's opera-glass, caged birds, carpet-shoe and Sentinel newspaper etc. In the very poetic opening sequence of the film is not bereft of any intention by the director. The use of opera-glass vision or binocular-vision (which is masked-shot to be precise) is very grabbing. Charu sees the world through opera-glass. Even she sees her husband Bhupati with it once. The immediate and swift zoom-out after the gaze is praiseworthy. In the film, Charu sees the world through it but whoever she sees goes out of her limited vision. She cannot but forced to let them go out of her vision. By the end of the film, she once again takes refuge to her glasses. The focus of her glasses (a boat) moves on. The only person static in her opera-glass is Amal as seen in the garden sequence. But Amal sneaks off at last rendering Charu's opera-glass a constant metaphor of both escapism and a means of escape. Two times in the film, caged birds are seen within the frame of a shot's composition. That is a perfect metaphor for representing Charu and Amal to some extent as if they can fly but within a limited confinement where flying does not even mean anything fruitful. The carpet-shoe metaphor is a perfect example of Charu's growing weakness for Amal. Charu knitted the pair of shoe with meticulous attention for Bhupati. This was a sign of her loyalty to her husband. But she presents it to Amal and it was clear that she was presenting her affinity for Amal by doing this. When Amal leaves, she angrily collects the pair of shoe from Amal's room but there is no indication that she will give it to Bhupati either. The metaphoric indication is clear _ Charu can never present her love to anyone anymore. The Sentinel newspaper is last but not the least metaphor here. It shifts its representational position which makes it an interesting metaphor. At first it was a symbol of Bhupati's workaholic mind and was appreciable. Then it turns itself as an image of political consciousness of Bhupati and thus assumes a negative connotation to the viewer. It is because Bhupati's obsession with politics fruits a chasm in a social relationship between him and his wife Charu. Then the newspaper becomes a symbol of Bhupati's failure. At the last freeze shot, a copy of the newspaper is seen which connotes itself to be nothing more than a scrap and thus a metonymy of a broken house. Among other metaphors, betel and Bishwabondhu magazine are prominent ones.

It is literally very tough to find flaws with editing of such a meticulously knitted film. In fact, there is none to be mentioned. The transition between scenes is smoothed by very charming fade-ins and fade-outs. There are cuts but torrent of the plot remains uninterrupted. It must be mentioned that superimposition used in order to ensure the transition between scenes were very successful. The most interesting was the last three freezes. It is at once appreciable and bears evidence of cinematic craftsmanship of Satyajit Ray. He was accused by a critic that Charulata has been a bad adaptation. But within the technical sophistication of a film; the necessity of deducing, adding and altering is technically and literally undeniable. Thus the subtlety of editing makes Charulata one of the most entertaining and pioneering films in Bengali of all times. The editing aids to condense the story within an accepted time frame. In a nutshell, the crafty editing makes Charulata even critics' favourite as well.

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.