Charulata (1964)
Directed by Satyajit Ray

Film Review

Charulata, Satyajit Ray's twelfth film, is based on a story entitled Nastanirh (a.k.a. The Broken Nest) by the highly regarded Bengali poet and writer Rabindranath Tagore.   Of the many films he made, Ray considered this his personal favourite, the only film he felt could not be improved upon.  It is certainly one of his most beguiling works, a compelling chamber piece with a distinctly Chekhovian flavour.  The film won Ray his second Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival and is considered by many to be one of his finest achievements.

The story is deceptively simple, a variant on the eternal triangle theme, but Ray's treatment of it makes it a masterwork of subtle complexity.  The power of the film stems from the inability of the three main characters (all intelligent, articulate individuals) to express their feelings and reveal their most profound feelings for each other.  As a consequence of this emotional constipation, their desires are frustrated, suspicions go unresolved, and their lives are forever marred by the sour poison of unfulfilled passions.  The irony of all this is succinctly encapsulated in the closing seconds of the film, with photographic stills completing the story, conveying the broken, desolate future that lies ahead.

The feelings of the three protagonists are not directly expressed, through dialogue, but revealed through lingering close-ups of the actors' faces.  How much mystery and emotion can be glimpsed in the most expressive of nature's landscapes, the human visage...  Ray virtually tells the whole story in close-up, locking the camera on to the faces of his three leading players and allowing their character's potent but repressed feelings to slowly come through, disrupting the placid surface like ripples on a stagnant lake.

The fluctuating moods of the characters are heightened by Subrata Mitra's eloquent chiaroscuro cinematography.  Note how, at the start of the film, Charulata appears like a bird in a cage, mournful at her imprisonment in what appears to be a loveless marriage.  Then notice how she appears when Amal enters her life and shares his love of poetry with her.  She is suddenly suffused with life, the world around her possesses a radiance that makes her appear like a rare flower in bloom.   Charu's miraculous return from the dead is vividly expressed in the sequence in which she flies back and forth on a garden swing - a sequence which owes something to Jean Renoir's Partie de campagne (1936).  The camera moves with Charu so that she appears static and, as a result, we shares her exhilaration as the world surges past her in a kaleidoscopic flurry of unbridled joy.

It is the powerful visual rendering of human feelings that makes Charulata so moving and so real.  It transcends the conventional romantic melodrama and is an altogether different kind of visual love poem.  Its characters do not betray their innermost desires through words or acts, but through subtle, bearly perceptible facial expressions which expose their inner turmoil.  Superbly acted, stunningly photographed and assembled with blistering lyrical power, this could well be cinema's most perfectly realised tragic love story.

Film Synopsis

Calcutta, 1879.  Bhupati Dutta is the proprietor of a political newspaper which is struggling to attract a readership.  Whilst he buries himself in his work, his wife Charulata languishes alone in their large house, with nothing to do except give orders to servants and read books.   Noticing his wife's boredom, Bhupati invites her elder brother Umapada and his wife Manda to live with them.  Whilst Umapada makes himself useful by managing Bhupati's printing press, Manda tries to divert Charulata, without much success.   When Bhupati's younger cousin Amal pays a visit, Bhupati asks him to encourage his wife to take up writing.  A recent graduate with literary ambitions of his own, Amal finds a kindred spirit in Charulata, who shares his love of poetry and music.  What begins as a harmless friendship quickly develops into something more serious and Charulata dreads the day when Amal will leave her.  Then disaster strikes.  Bhupati discovers that Umapada has been stealing his money, effectively bankrupting his newspaper.  Unable to betray his cousin at this moment of crisis, Amal leaves without saying goodbye.  Charulata is heartbroken when she hears of this.  Realising the feelings that his wife has for Amal, Bhupati makes an attempt at reconciliation.  But it is a mere gesture...