Kanchenjungha

This is not meant as an insult, but this Ray film comes off a bit like an episode of "Love Boat". I really mean no disrespect, but on the old TV show, you had several different couples who all had a story and they all had that common link of working it out on vacation. Here, instead of in a boat, it's in the mountainside where various Indians are vacationing. Most of them are family members but there are also others whose stories end up intersecting with them. There is the family patriarch and his wife, the daughter they want to marry off and the man who she is not in love with, the nice but poor suitor, the husband and wife working through a case of infidelity and more.

Like so many of Satyajit Ray's films, this one is about middle and upper class Indians and their everyday problems. The key to these films is the acting--the realistic acting and the connection the audience makes with these real folks. In many, many, many ways, these films are nothing like the Bollywood films of today--and there is no singing and the fairytale-like plots of many of the newer films is totally absent. Realism is the key--and a bit reminiscent of Ozu's films about ordinary but likable folks. While "Kanchenjungha" is not one of his more famous films and its plot a bit too ordinary, I think it's actually one of his best films--full of realism and heart--but also not everyone's sort of film.

Located on the border between Nepal and the state of Sikkim in India, Kanchenjungha (also spelled Kangchenjunga) is the highest mountain in India and the third highest in the world. That its setting for a film would be lovely is a given, but the fact that the mountain is often covered in mist makes it a perfect metaphor for the obstacles that can cloud people's vision. Such is the theme of Satyajit Ray's 1962 film Kanchenjunga, a look at changing values in the early days of Indian independence. It is a film that is firmly fixed in the Ray tradition: slow moving, intimate, and lyrical, filled with conflicted characters, social commentary, exquisite music, and enchanting children.

Kanchenjunga deals with parallel stories and the interconnectedness of people's lives, a format that would be even more in vogue fifteen years later. Focused on the upper middle-class Choudhuri family vacationing in Darjeeling, the story unfolds in real time, taking place in one day. The father Indranath (Chhabi Biswas), who has nothing but admiration for the former British rulers, has played the system to reach his position as the powerful head of five companies. The pompous patriarch usually gets his way and both he and his normally submissive wife Labanya Roy (Karuna Bannerjee) expect his daughter Monisha (Alaknanda Roy) to follow his wishes and marry a dull but rising bureaucrat named Bannerjee (N. Viswanathan) who, if nothing else, can provide his bride with security.

What Indranath has not counted on, however, is that Monisha has a mind of her own and an old-fashioned idea that love should play a part in whom you marry. Labanya asserts herself as well, telling Monisha that she has to make up her own mind. The story takes place as the characters walk along the scenic hill station in late afternoon waiting for the clouds to clear so they can get a good view of the mountains. Another prominent player, Ashoke (Arun Mukherjee), a 24-year-old working class man from Calcutta who had tutored Indranath's son Anil when he was a little boy, is on vacation with his uncle. The semi-comic uncle wants him to cozy up to Indranath, envisioning the possibilities for a job paying 300 rupees a month for his nephew. Ashoke takes the opportunity and meets the tycoon but is treated like a servant, Indranath asking him to go to his room to bring him his red muffler.

The young man gets the last laugh, however, when he turns down his offer of a job after a long monologue about how successful he has become. More importantly to Ashoke, however, is his meeting with Indranath's daughter Monisha. Though they come from different economic levels of society, their unpretentiousness draw them to each other and their budding relationship holds promise for the future. Other characters are Monisha's older sister, Anima (Anubha Gupta), and her husband Shankar (Subrata Sen Sharma), who are trying to patch up a relationship that has broken down as a result of his drinking and gambling, and her long-term affair with another man, but they are bound together by the love of their young daughter who rides a horse around the hill during the entire afternoon.

These sub-dramas play out against the background of the imposing mountains. As evening approaches and the sky clears, the characters, liberated by the beauty that surrounds them, are able to see with clarity a society changing before their eyes and how their lives have been forever affected. Kanchenjungha is Ray's first color film and one that he produced and directed, wrote the original screenplay, and composed the music, an impressive feat. Though none of his subsequent work ever reached the stratospheric heights of The Apu Trilogy, the mark of a great director is when one of his obscure, minor films can fit into the category of a masterpiece. It's a good fit for Kanchenjungha.

The movie walks in and around Darjeeling. It follows group of characters intricately woven together; describing each personality by themselves and with respect to the other characters. The movie may be described as a beautiful documentation on basics of human nature, with many folds; and every time one watches it, discovers a new dimension. Ray's films interact with the audience in a way that, anyone can perceive them, and Kanchenjungha is no exception to that. What is it about these picturesque snow-capped hills that make one ponder into reflections, which has no space for, in life typically? Unlike the popular understanding the various characters are not shown to "evolve". Rather surrounded by innocence and beauty of the Darjeeling hills, together each of Ray's characters unfurl gradually into a culmination. Every scene in this film has an element of Darjeeling included, such as the unseen bird call, or animals that pass by, or the locals adorn in their tradition. With the sunrays that playing hide-n-seek through the clouds, the Darjeeling mists dances around, only to clear out in the end. It is as if the mountains itself fashions the individuals to reveal themselves, to speak out. Then and only then would the fog clear and you can see "the most beautiful snow range in the world" In then end Kanchenjunga can be summed up into one word as "perfect".

Ray's first Color film, a cinematic masterpiece, filmic experiment at its height and incidentally my most favorite. For some reasons, this movie is least understood among the Bengali speaking people and abroad as well and hence remains least appreciated.

The single most noteworthy feature about this movie is the equivalence of real time (total time of the day being depicted in movie) and movie time (total screening time). At least among the Indian movie makers, Ray is the first one who had done such experiment and of course, he succeeded comprehensively.

In order to understand the screenplay of 'Kanchanjangha', I would recommend every non-Bengali speaking people, for the first time at least, to look for a good and authentic translation of the script and then only they should sit for watching this movie. You have to keep one thing in mind; Ray's screenplay is extremely dependent on the usage of dialogue and silence and they are, in this case, written in Bengali Language and set into Bengali context. Unlike Kieslowski, Kurosawa and Bergman, Ray's imagery lacks the dramatic element. So, in order to understand 'the drama' it's recommended to understand his language to the extent possible.

a truly underrated masterpiece.as a child growing up in a Ray-worshipping family i'd always been told about this gem,but as a child and an adolescent it never made a deep enough impression upon me.after a few hundred truly excellent movies and twenty years later one late night viewing opened my eyes .figuratively ,i mean!i think i needed to find out WHAT a good movie is before truly appreciating kanchenjungha. almost the best performances of their careers from all the artistes in the movie.veteran actor Chhabi Biswas gives the performance of a lifetime as Raibahadur Indranath .Ray has commented elsewhere that some characters such as Raibahdur Indranath Chowdhury here,and the Zamindar Bishwambhar Roy in Jalsaghar could not have been fleshed out by any other than the late Chhobi Biswas.and with his death the Indian film industry suffered an irreplaceable loss. somebody else has commented that the print quality was bad and dark so he didn't like it.i have heard many to have come up come with similar allegations. fact remains that Ray shot this film with masterfully chosen available light conditions(read:no reflectors,you morons!)to depict the subtle interplay of light and shade to blend in with progress of the storyline!(as an aside ray recounts the sad story of a Bollywood film crew who arrived in Darjeeling at the same time as ray's team,and were still waiting for the elusive sun to arrive so they could begin shooting by the time ray had his whole film in the can and packed up to go home!) the climactic scene of the kanchenjungha suddenly making a brilliant appearance at the penultimate hour never fails to bring out goosebumps!definitely recommended.