Charulata (1964)

• Year: 1964
• Released: 17 Apr 1964
• Country: India
• Adwords: 8 wins & 2 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057935/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/charulata
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: Bengali, English
• MPA Rating: Not Rated
• Genre: Drama, Romance
• Runtime: 117 min
• Writer: Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit Ray
• Director: Satyajit Ray
• Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhavi Mukherjee, Shailen Mukherjee
• Keywords: 19th century, writer, based on short story, india, newspaper editor,

	8.1/10
	93% – Critics
	91% – Audience

Charulata Storyline

Set in British India in the 19th century, the film revolves around Charulata, the beautiful wife of a learned Calcutta intellectual. She sits at home alone while her wealthy husband Bhupati runs his English language newspaper. Upon recognizing her profound loneliness, Bhupati invites his brother-in-law Umapada and wife Mandakini as house guests. Amal, his handsome younger cousin also comes for a visit following his graduation from college. Charu and Amal spend hours reminiscing over literature, poetry and the arts while Bhupati works on his paper. For a short time everyone is content. Then, a tragedy occurs. Umapada absconds with Bhupati’s savings, leaving the entrepreneur in terrible debt. But the betrayed man soon realizes that something much more precious than his money is lost.

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Charulata Movie Reviews

The Magic of Satyajit Ray

This is the first film of Satyajit Ray that I have seen, and probably one of the first if not the first non-westernized Indian films. Most of my previous viewings like the wonderful Monsoon Wedding by Mira Nair were made by directors who live and created in Hollywood. This wonderful film made in 1964 is even more a revelation, as its director is a master, contemporary and at the same level as the best directors of his generation.

The setting of the story is in Calcutta’s high society of the end of the 19th century, in a period of social and national conflict that is all the time on the background but is not really the center of the story. Based on a story by Rabindranath Tagore, almost all the conflict happens in the house of the wealthy journalist and newspaper owner Bupathi, which is filmed with refinement in all its details by the master camera of Subrata Mitra. My feeling after the first scenes was that I am watching a play by Ibsen or Chekhov transplanted in a different continent and this feeling was induced not only by the one set staging but also or especially by the strong character of the principal character, Bupathi’s beautiful wife Charulata. We immediately feel her loneliness, her need to connect with people, her emotional capacity which he represses by watching the human landscape of the street. When Buphati will being his younger brother Amal in the house, the two will become involved, in a never consumed forbidden relationship that is intense and discreet. As proving or acting openly according to sentiments is not part of the culture the characters belong to, Charulata will prove her sentiments by demonstrating her creative and intellectual qualities, in a world and a time dominated by men. The ending may look like a melodrama, but it’s perfectly plausible.

Charulata is acted by Madhabi Mukherjee in a flawless and sensible performance that reminds Yasujiro Ozu’s preferred actress Setsuko Hara. It is not however the only aspect that reminded me the Japanese master. The vibration of nature in ‘Charulata’ complements and amplifies the feelings of the heroes, same as in Ozu’s movies. The reliance on actors to describe feelings to the most subtle of the nuances, the delicacy and dignity of the relations, the quite storytelling and the control of story time seem all to belong to the same school of cinema that puts actors and camera work in the center of the art of film making. Ray’s cinema has more of a social and historical context though, at least in this film. There is also a key difference in the camera work approach. While both directors control the art of framing and build beautiful and memorable scenes, there is much more dynamics in Ray’s camera movement, with daring shots that represent much more the characters view of the world than the director’s view as at Ozu.

‘Charulata’ was for me one of these revelations of a new world that happens once in a awhile in the life of a cinema lover. One more proof that good cinema transcends genres and film schools, and succeeds at best when it talks directly to the hearts of the viewers.

Absolute perfection

As cinema appears to become ever more loud and brash, a work as delicate, subtle and understated as this may easily pass unnoticed, or mistaken as insipid. That is a great shame, since this is obviously a great masterpiece. Set in India in the last century, Charulata is trapped in a dull, stifling marriage. What starts off as innocent flirting with her brother-in-law soon sets off emotions that none of them, decent though they all are, can really control. There is no adultery as such – the betrayal is all in the mind – but the trust implicit in marriage is broken, and the future can only be faced with uncertainty.

This is a film of great grace and elegance, and also of considerable wit. But underneath the surface charm is a great seriousness. As always, Ray depicts the development of the characters with great insight and sensitivity, and coaxes fine performances from his cast. Western critics, in discussing this film, often draw parallels with the works of Chekhov or of Henry James, but Ray’s inspiration was actually the great Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore, on whose short novel this film was based. As a piece of film-making, it is absolute perfection – a real gem.

Ray’s finest, if one has to pick

Much as I love this film, I wish that any new viewer might first encounter it on a big screen, with its lovely, rhapsodic recreation of its late 19th Century setting is most apparent. The Chekhov parallels are overwhelming– same period, same bittersweet attention to over-privileged lives, more than anything else the same rare affinity for female characters.