Charulata

While many of us will disagree with them, great moviemakers often consider the sensitivity with which a theme is treated a more important trait of good cinema than the plot or story itself.

For untrained audiences, of which a majority of us are members, the proportion of the above traits is perhaps what puts a movie into the "boring" or "entertaining" -- and in turn the "good" and "bad" -- categories. Only a few directors have bridged the gap.

Inevitably the maestro, Satyajit Ray, falls in that category which does not believe in heightening drama, bamboozzling sequences or even poetic justice.

Yet, the sights, sounds, music, those raised eyebrows, those furtive glances, the play of shadows, which Ray's craft is replete with, including in "Charulata", make for the kind of sublime drama that penetrates the mind through some kind of osmosis rather than through bombardment of the senses.

Based on Tagore's "Nastanirh" (The Broken Nest), considered an autobiographical work that maps the platonic-romanitc relationship between Tagore and his sis-in-law, the highly telented and ethereal Kadambari Devi, "Charulata" is the story of the quintessential lonely, yet talented housewife.

Bhupati, a well-meaning and well-to-do Bengali intellectial of 19th century Calcutta is obsessed with politics and his newspaper. So much so that he begins to realise that his beautiful and creative wife Charulata (Madhabi Mukherjee) needs some kind of engagement. Enter Amal (Soumitra Chatterjee), the 23-year-old, equally talented and musically oriented, good looking cousin of Bhupati, along with a storm!

Amal kindles Charu's in-born brigthness and is himself bewildered by what he finds. The subsequent intimacy develops into a romantic inclination on the part of Charu, which Amal senses and avoids out of guilt.

Meanwhile, Charu's brother, Umapada, who is also the newspaper's manager, cheats the idealist Bhupati of a huge amount of money, in the process destroying the latter partially and the newspaper completely.

Just when the half-devastated Bhupati reposes his complete faith in Amal--who leaves that very night--he discovers Charu's feelings for him.

The last scene is telling. A distraught Bhupati returns home after long hours of listless wandering. The frame freezes just as Charu and Bhupati move towards a tentative reconciliatory gesture, indicating some kind of an unbridgeable gap.