Charulata = The Lonely wife

Calcutta in the 1880s; Charu, the neglected wife of the editor of a political weekly, has an affair with her husband’s cousin, Amal, a young poet. In the detailed observation of a certain stratum of Bengali society, the film oscillates between wryly humorous chamber piece and domestic tragedy as the heroine breaks through to greater self-awareness and understanding of the male domain. Charulata has been described by Ray’s biographer Andrew Robinson as ‘the most complete fusion of eastern and western sensibility in the cinema’, eastern in the specific tensions between the characters, western in the way these tensions are resolved, particularly for Charu. Winner of Silver Bear for Best Direction, Berlin Film Festival. Also available on 16mm.

Credits: Director, writer, music, Satyajit Ray ; photography, Subrata Mitra ; art direction, Bansi Chandragupta ; editor, Dulal Dutta.
Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Sailen Mukherjee.
Note: From the novella Nastanirh by Rabindranath Tagore.