Located on the border between Nepal and the state of Sikkim in India, Kanchenjungha (also spelled Kangchenjunga) is the highest mountain in India and the third highest in the world. That its setting for a film would be lovely is a given, but the fact that the mountain is often covered in mist makes it a perfect metaphor for the obstacles that can cloud people's vision. Such is the theme of Satyajit Ray's 1962 film Kanchenjunga, a look at changing values in the early days of Indian independence. It is a film that is firmly fixed in the Ray tradition: slow moving, intimate, and lyrical, filled with conflicted characters, social commentary, exquisite music, and enchanting children.
Kanchenjunga deals with parallel stories and the interconnectedness of people's lives, a format that would be even more in vogue fifteen years later. Focused on the upper middle-class Choudhuri family vacationing in Darjeeling, the story unfolds in real time, taking place in one day. The father Indranath (Chhabi Biswas), who has nothing but admiration for the former British rulers, has played the system to reach his position as the powerful head of five companies. The pompous patriarch usually gets his way and both he and his normally submissive wife Labanya Roy (Karuna Bannerjee) expect his daughter Monisha (Alaknanda Roy) to follow his wishes and marry a dull but rising bureaucrat named Bannerjee (N. Viswanathan) who, if nothing else, can provide his bride with security.
What Indranath has not counted on, however, is that Monisha has a mind of her own and an old-fashioned idea that love should play a part in whom you marry. Labanya asserts herself as well, telling Monisha that she has to make up her own mind. The story takes place as the characters walk along the scenic hill station in late afternoon waiting for the clouds to clear so they can get a good view of the mountains. Another prominent player, Ashoke (Arun Mukherjee), a 24-year-old working class man from Calcutta who had tutored Indranath's son Anil when he was a little boy, is on vacation with his uncle. The semi-comic uncle wants him to cozy up to Indranath, envisioning the possibilities for a job paying 300 rupees a month for his nephew. Ashoke takes the opportunity and meets the tycoon but is treated like a servant, Indranath asking him to go to his room to bring him his red muffler.
The young man gets the last laugh, however, when he turns down his offer of a job after a long monologue about how successful he has become. More importantly to Ashoke, however, is his meeting with Indranath's daughter Monisha. Though they come from different economic levels of society, their unpretentiousness draw them to each other and their budding relationship holds promise for the future. Other characters are Monisha's older sister, Anima (Anubha Gupta), and her husband Shankar (Subrata Sen Sharma), who are trying to patch up a relationship that has broken down as a result of his drinking and gambling, and her long-term affair with another man, but they are bound together by the love of their young daughter who rides a horse around the hill during the entire afternoon.
These sub-dramas play out against the background of the imposing mountains. As evening approaches and the sky clears, the characters, liberated by the beauty that surrounds them, are able to see with clarity a society changing before their eyes and how their lives have been forever affected. Kanchenjungha is Ray's first color film and one that he produced and directed, wrote the original screenplay, and composed the music, an impressive feat. Though none of his subsequent work ever reached the stratospheric heights of The Apu Trilogy, the mark of a great director is when one of his obscure, minor films can fit into the category of a masterpiece. It's a good fit for Kanchenjungha.
Kanchenjunga deals with parallel stories and the interconnectedness of people's lives, a format that would be even more in vogue fifteen years later. Focused on the upper middle-class Choudhuri family vacationing in Darjeeling, the story unfolds in real time, taking place in one day. The father Indranath (Chhabi Biswas), who has nothing but admiration for the former British rulers, has played the system to reach his position as the powerful head of five companies. The pompous patriarch usually gets his way and both he and his normally submissive wife Labanya Roy (Karuna Bannerjee) expect his daughter Monisha (Alaknanda Roy) to follow his wishes and marry a dull but rising bureaucrat named Bannerjee (N. Viswanathan) who, if nothing else, can provide his bride with security.
What Indranath has not counted on, however, is that Monisha has a mind of her own and an old-fashioned idea that love should play a part in whom you marry. Labanya asserts herself as well, telling Monisha that she has to make up her own mind. The story takes place as the characters walk along the scenic hill station in late afternoon waiting for the clouds to clear so they can get a good view of the mountains. Another prominent player, Ashoke (Arun Mukherjee), a 24-year-old working class man from Calcutta who had tutored Indranath's son Anil when he was a little boy, is on vacation with his uncle. The semi-comic uncle wants him to cozy up to Indranath, envisioning the possibilities for a job paying 300 rupees a month for his nephew. Ashoke takes the opportunity and meets the tycoon but is treated like a servant, Indranath asking him to go to his room to bring him his red muffler.
The young man gets the last laugh, however, when he turns down his offer of a job after a long monologue about how successful he has become. More importantly to Ashoke, however, is his meeting with Indranath's daughter Monisha. Though they come from different economic levels of society, their unpretentiousness draw them to each other and their budding relationship holds promise for the future. Other characters are Monisha's older sister, Anima (Anubha Gupta), and her husband Shankar (Subrata Sen Sharma), who are trying to patch up a relationship that has broken down as a result of his drinking and gambling, and her long-term affair with another man, but they are bound together by the love of their young daughter who rides a horse around the hill during the entire afternoon.
These sub-dramas play out against the background of the imposing mountains. As evening approaches and the sky clears, the characters, liberated by the beauty that surrounds them, are able to see with clarity a society changing before their eyes and how their lives have been forever affected. Kanchenjungha is Ray's first color film and one that he produced and directed, wrote the original screenplay, and composed the music, an impressive feat. Though none of his subsequent work ever reached the stratospheric heights of The Apu Trilogy, the mark of a great director is when one of his obscure, minor films can fit into the category of a masterpiece. It's a good fit for Kanchenjungha.