Following my quest to see more meaningful Indian cinema I finally sat down to see Satyajit Ray's Charulata ( winner of the Silver Bear at Berlin Film festival). The film is supposed to be the one Ray himself likes very much. The film exemplifies why Ray remains one of the best Indian directors ever. Ghatak once remarked that Ray is the best "editor" he has ever come across and it shows why in this film - the pacing is deliberately slow and hence inherently mesmerizing. This film is also the most appreciated film by western audience, Ray however feels this is precarious and argues that only a Bengali can appreciate this to its fullest extent. I will have to acknowledge that having just watched it all literary references of bengali renaissance were going over my head but doing some background work led me to me to savor this movie even more esp. his references to Bakim Chandra Chaterjee ( who pretty much "ties" the film together). The movie ends with a tribute shot from Traffauts 400 blows - a master cinematic stroke in using the freeze-frame.

For all those in love with period film ( along with literary adaptations) there can be no better film that this - advocates of parineeta see what "it" could have been

The DVD seems to be a port of the Ismail Merchant restoration efforts ( from VHS probably). I expected it to be bad but was pleasantly surprised when I found it to be much better than expected. The sour point is probably the subtitles - I feel I missed a lot of nuance .






























Though this is a bootleg i cannot encourage you guys to grab a copy from

http://bdbazar.com/nshop/product_info.p ... ts_id/1906

BTW - i read somewhere that Sony has lost the rights to Satyajit Ray films so perhaps we will indeed see some criterion release

Charulata is a fine film, and the editing is particularly noteworthy. The beginning has a very restless pace, and the camera has a more kinetic quality than usual for Ray's films. I believe this is also the first time he composed the score of the film.

The opening sequence is a tribute to cinema as a visual medium - everything so precisely planned and excecuted . I read that Ray had complete freedom on the sets and in the script and took lot of time to devlop it - it must have beena joy to have that luxury. and as for the music i think it is either' Theen Kanya' or 'Kanchenjungha' that he first composed the score for ( i might be wrong on this one) .

This actress reminds me of Vidya Balan

Maybe a bit more chubbier (which seem to be the norm for older actresses) than vidya balan .

The actress name is Madhabi Mukherjee and she acted in mahanagar before charulata. Ray liked her very much but was hesitant to cast her because he "thought" she had horrible teeth , but his wife convinced him to cast her as charulata and boy what a delight it was.

Some comparison shots from the Artificial Eye DVD of Charulata - not sure what brand the DVD that dvdisoil posted shots of was, but those are on top, and the AE shots are below.

Criterion is coming up with a Blu-ray restoration of Charulata and Mahanagar (http://www.criterion.com/library/expand ... lease_date).

I saw these on pre sale @ B&N

Has it come out?