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Editorial
Product Description
Satyajit Ray is internationally acknowledged as one of the great masters of world cinema. From his extraordinarily accomplished debut 'Pather Panchali', his films - many of them masterpieces - have won him legions of admirers, among them Akira Kurosawa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, V.S. Naipaul and Martin Scorsese. Mahanagar (The Big City): Set in the mid' 50s, Ray's often humorous story of conflicting social values in India's lower-middle class stars Madhabi Mukherjee as a housewife whose growing independence alarms her traditionalist family. Charulata (The Lonely Wife) Neglected by her ambitious journalist husband, the lonely Charulata (Madhabi Mukherjee) befriends his cousin (Soumitra Chatterjee), a sensitive aspiring writer, and almost inevitably their feelings for each other begin to deepen. Adapted from a story by Rabindranath Tagore, Ray considered this sensitively realised drama one of his finest achievements. Nayak (The Hero) This beautifully observed character study was one of Ray's earliest original screenplays. En route to an award ceremony, a famous and egocentric Bengali movie star finds that he is compelled to re-evaluate his life after encountering a disapproving young journalist (Sharmila Tagore).
Editorial
Synopsis
Three classic films from renowned filmmaker, Satyjit Ray. Includes MAHANAGAR, CHARULATA and NAYAK.
charulata -incest or infidelity in an introspective
Review date: 2008-07-09 Rating: 10 out of 10
charulata -the lonely wife
ray's most personal movie describes the unadulterated love and longing of an intelligent woman for her younger brother-in-law ,while the husband is pursuing his intellectual hobby of running a radical english newspaper in calcutta ,charaluta is left to confide her creative passions with her artistic and poetic brothrer-in-law ,it is diificult to define where this crosses the line from admiration to love but the emotion evolves naturally to blossom into something more than matronly affiliation ,whether there is an element of lust is left for the audience to decide with small trivial domestic details,but the relationship is a satire on the security of the indian marriage where any such thought much less act can become a blasphemy ,
charu is adored by her husband who is one of the most respectable aristocrats in the higher social echelons in colonial calcutta,their political discussions are just as enthusiastic as their exploration of piano and music ,this is a private sacred world and when a virtuous woman finds herself heeding thoughts which are ambivalent to her breeding ,she spurns herself and almost becomes a stranger to herself ,
the internal strife is beautifully depicted through other characters surrounding her ,the domestic chores and her observaviotions of the street life from her balcony,
the edwardian decor of the town house and the cloistered garden are the backdrop to this shy and mellow drama,it is too quaint to call it a romance and it is too bold in it's conclusion to be labelled as anything but a ground-breaking drama .
nayak is very good too but charulata is a must -see masterpiece .