Kadambari

NO proper timeline . No right flow of emotions . No goose bumps . No wet eyes. Why should someone watch this movie ?? This is why a movie fail terribly . We Bengalis even don't like it . How can someone else get anything from this dumb movie.

Kadambari was the wife of the elder brother of Rabindranath Tagore. She played a prominent role in the life of the poet – looked after his needs during his growing up years, providing him companionship and above all giving him encouragement in his writing pursuit. Speculation has been rife about the exact nature of the relationship between the two, but as most biographers of Tagore opines that there hardly existed any concrete evidence of their relationship being romantic in its nature. Parambrata Chattopadhyay as Robi and Konkana Sen Sharma in the titular role act credibly.The supporting cast of Srikanta Acharya, Kunal Sen and others does well too.

The film has been based on the story PROTHOM ALO by Sunil Gangopadhyay. The director Suman Ghosh (Nobel Chor, Poddokep) does hint of intimacy in the Kadambari- Robi relationship but virtually clears Robi in her suicidal act putting the blame largely on her philandering husband (Kunal Sen). The film is quite watchable with many wonderful Rabindrasangeet (Tomare koriya chi jiboner o dhruba tara…) and is extremely well-shot.

Writing in the Statesman, the noted film critic Swapan Mullick writes thus about the film: Suman Ghosh's Kadambari revives the tragic story of Tagore's sister-in-law with whom the young poet shared a tender relationship that ended in her suicide at the age of 25. The basic facts are known — that she had married Jyotirindranath who had not given her much attention and that she became a source of creative inspiration for the young Rabindranath in his songs and poems till she took her life four months after he married.

The director gives the story a treatment of his own and it must have been an enormous challenge for Konkona Sen Sharma and Parambrata Chatterjee to revive an atmosphere that is wrapped in controversy. The film mixes fact and fiction in the manner the director had done for Nobel Chor without doing harm to the basic content. There, too, a real- life situation with a Tagore connection needed to be fleshed out with a sense of artistic restraint and logic.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

In this biopic on Kadambari's life, director Suman Ghosh finally has the opportunity to explore the events leading up to her death. Using established facts and historical sources (especially Rabindranath's writings), he has created a tight narrative that hints at what may have been without sensationalizing the possibilities. The result is a beautiful glimpse of the occasionally satisfying, more often frustrating life of a woman married into the first family of Bengali society during the Bengali Renaissance.

One of the most important aspects of this film is its beautiful, historically accurate depiction of the upper-class Calcuttan society of the time. As the most influential family of the period, the Tagores were both typical of upper-class Bengali society and significantly different. The family was extremely wealthy and well educated; as part of the leisure classes, each member of the family could focus on their own interests. This is why the family produced so many talented people with an enormous variety of skills. The women of the household were not exempted from this; they were also highly educated and encouraged to engage with society in ways that was usually prohibited for other upper-class women. This is evident in the literary success of Rabindranath's elder sister Swarnakumari Devi (1855-1932), who was the first prominent female writer in the Bengali language; and in the activities of another of Rabindranath's sisters-in-law, Jnanadanandini Devi (1850-1941), challenging the practice of purdah and redesigning the style of dress worn by Bengali women (by adding a blouse and changing the drape to allow women to go out in public).

But at the same time, there is a stark contrast between many of the family's values and the way women were actually treated in the household. The most blatant example is the practice of child marriage. This practice of marrying a pre-pubescent child to a much older young man (usually late teens-early 20s) was a target of criticism at the time. Rabindranath even wrote in protest of this practice, while at the same time arranging for his two daughters to be married at a young age (the elder age 15 and the younger age 10). Kadambari's marriage at the age of 10 is yet another example of this family tradition.

Despite being raised in a relatively free environment and having access to education, it is clear that Kadambari was not free in many ways. Most significantly, Kadambari's place in the Tagore household meant that she was unable to satisfy many of her emotional needs.

One of the main themes of this movie is that women's emotional needs were generally not met by the upper-class Bengali culture of this period. The lonely Kadambari just wants a friend and companion, one that is her intellectual equal and whom she can engage with on a higher level. She cannot get this kind of attention from the servants (who seem to like her more than the other women of the family), or from her husband, who is so busy with his multitude of projects (from theater to starting a shipping company) that he has no time for her.

She can engage with Robi on this level. But he is always busy writing and becoming famous. And then the family arranges his marriage in order to separate them, because Kadambari's relationship with him is not considered appropriate.

So then she is left by herself.

In many ways, Kadambari is trapped in this house, this relationship, and this family. She is not having her need for friendship or companionship met, but she can't leave or do anything to alleviate her isolation. Her life becomes meaningless to her, and that, this movie asserts, is the reason she commits suicide.

"Kadambari" is a wonderful biopic about a complicated, lonely woman in mid-1800s Calcuttan society. Konkana Sen Sharma's acting powerfully conveys Kadambari's strength, fear, and emotional conflict, providing a sense of deeply felt humanity to the historical figure. The rest of the cast also performs admirably, conveying the normalcy of this impressively talented family. This film is an instant classic.

Recommended for anyone who is interested in learning more about Calcuttan society during the Bengali Renaissance, about women in Indian history, or about the Tagore family. Or anyone who likes a good biopic.

The movie has presented human behaviour and emotions of protagonists in a very realistic and raw way.

For those who are interested in the mythos surrounding the Jorasanko Tagore family, this film is definitely recommended. Yes, it has a haphazard way of depicting the sequence of events, and of course not everything shown in the film is accurate from a historic point of view, but very few concrete facts are known about the actual incident on which it is based. At the time when this happened, the Tagores were the most talked about family in Calcutta (it was called Calcutta back then), and they did everything in their power to keep it hushed.

In spite of this, the movie has some great performances, particularly by Ms Sen and by Kaushik, who plays her husband. It's a moving tale of how a young girl is married into one of the most immensely wealthy and influential families in Bengal, and how she has to adapt to a new and somewhat orthodox environment, even making a lifelong friend along the way.

The background score is impeccable, with Ustad Amjad Ali Khan working his sarod magic, and there are several great songs, too. Even with the inaccuracies, I felt that the essence of the period and the Tagore family environment has been depicted very skillfully, and makes for a good watch. The duration of the film is short by Indian standards, and the pace is well maintained.

The bottomline: do not watch this with expectations of documentary level accuracy, rather enjoy it like a legend or a campfire story. You won't be disappointed if you really are interested in anecdotes about the Calcutta of old.