Commentaires de l'article: Charulata, Satyajit Ray's masterpiece

Commentaire de yves

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:23:27 +0100

Hello MW,

Thanks for the link to that thoughtful review of yours. I am very pleased to know we also have Ray in common! I'll definately have to see and review some more of his works. I'll try and remember to let you know.

cheers

Commentaire de Mystic Wanderer

Tue, 25 Nov 2008 04:07:09 +0100

Merci.

You provide very good social background on the period. Ray is my all time favourite and Charulata remains one of his best. I recall having written about it briefly many years ago, on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/review/product/6304587384/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?_encoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Commentaire de yves

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:41:00 +0200

Thanks Bollyviewer,
Contrary to you, I wasn't surprised by Charu's falling in love with Amol, because I really undestand what it means for a young and attractive woman (and who knows it) to be alone in a house, without a child, without a fulfilling love-life. This is a very banal and probable situation for falling in love with another man. He like her is full of dreams and re-evaluations about middle-class strictures. So for me that wasn't a mystery.
Amol's departure is less directly understandable, perhaps. He leaves her when he learns that her husband is going to be home more, after having been swindled of the newspaper money. Also he knows now that Charu has had editorial success, and that she is less the toy he could play with. I feel he enjoyed being around her while she could offer him an opportunity for his own leisurely art-de-vivre. So I think he's used by Satyajit Ray to bring out the bourgeois "lonely wife's" quandary in XIXth century Bengal: should she remain the conservative "Prachina" that everybody expects her to be, or face modernity and risk becoming the "Nabina" of the future (see http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/04/charulata.html for these references), a future which is of course Ray's (and our) present? Because Charu is the real "problem" of the film. Revolutions in society are prepared through the changing roles assumed by women.
So yes, perhaps Amol does feel guilty about having let himself engage in a relationship which he knows shouldn't have existed. But perhaps he leaves satisfied because he's instilled in Charu's mind an independence which he believes (like Ray, like us) women should possess and explore. The interest (and drama) of the experiment is that she falls in love in the process. Yes, she's asserted herself thanks to him, she's published literature that she would never have published had it not been for him, but she's also bereaved of the very person who brought her that freedom and pleasure... Perhaps that drama contains a lesson: you can't be free without a price; there is pain and sacrifice in the search for truth and individual fulfilment. The quandary of women in any given society is that they need to step back in order for others (children, husband...) to thrive, but they're also individuals who aspire to a personal role. Trying to achieve both is often done at a cost of one!

Commentaire de bollyviewer

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 07:41:55 +0200

What a wonderfully thoughtful review! I saw this movie a few weeks ago and was also troubled by its slow pace. Looks like I need to re-watch it to gain better insight.

My first impressions, apart from the slow pace was that though every face was wonderfully expressive, I didnt really get what was happening. For example Charu's falling in love with Amol seems too abrupt - her feelings arent given time to develop. And Amol's reaction - does it mean he reciprocates her feelings and feels guilty about that or is it just guilt about hurting his brother and a beloved sister-in-law? What do you think?

On a more frivolous note - I loooved the Kishore song Ami chini go chini.