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Overview

User Rating:
6.7/10   403 votes
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Down 21% in popularity this week. See why on IMDbPro.

Director:

Rituparno Ghosh

Writers:

Rituparno Ghosh (screenplay)
Rabindranath Tagore (novel)

Contact:

View company contact information for Choker Bali: A Passion Play on IMDbPro.

Release Date:

23 August 2006 (France) more

Genre:

Drama more

Plot:

The book, Binodini, is the story of a young woman, who is left to her own devices when her sickly husband dies soon after they are married... more | add synopsis

Awards:

1 nomination more

NewsDesk:
(4 articles)

Sites Specific: Can Streaming Save Indie Film?
 (From IFC. 4 September 2009, 9:53 AM, PDT)

Chokher Bali - Movie Review
 (From The Bollywood Ticket. 27 August 2009, 1:34 PM, PDT)

User Comments:

Choker Bali : A reminiscent of our past more (16 total)


Cast

  (Credited cast)

Aishwarya Rai ... Binodini
Prasenjit Chatterjee ... Mahendra
Raima Sen ... Ashalata
Lily Chakravarty ... Rajlakshmi, Mahendra's mother (as Lilly Chakraborty)
Tota Roy Chowdhury ... Behari
Sonali Chakrabarti
Sudeshna Roy
Mousumi Saha
Suchita Ray Chaudhury
Zarin Chowdhury
Abhishek Bose
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Bharati Devi ... Dying woman at varanasi
more
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Additional Details

Also Known As:

Choker Bali: A Passion Play (International: English title)
Sand in the Eye (India: English title)
more

Runtime:

167 min | Switzerland:120 min (Locarno Film Festival) | Germany:145 min (Bollywood Festival Stuttgart) | Germany:120 min (DVD)

Country:

India

Language:

Bengali

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1 more

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Australia:PG | UK:PG


Fun Stuff

Trivia:

Aishwarya Rai wore dark brown contact lenses for her role. more

Goofs:

Factual errors: Binodini comes to Kolkata before the Ambubachi festival, which falls in the month of June. But while talking to Behari in the picnic scene she says that she has been here since Shravana (mid July to mid August). more

Movie Connections:

Version of Chokher Bali (1938) more


FAQ

This FAQ is empty. Add the first question.
6 out of 6 people found the following comment useful.
Choker Bali : A reminiscent of our past, 25 December 2004
8/10
Author: xbharath from United States

I saw 2 hour version of Choker Bali. I cannot say that is long. The movie has a certain natural pace to it and does not seem to lag at any time. The costume and the set are reminiscent of what we would see in old movies.

Aishwarya Rai has done a good job of acting. It is indeed a mature role with enough scope for acting within the story. The script also supports the story very well. Aishwarys acts as the unfortunate widow whose husband dies in the first year of marriage. The movie is about the passions and desires of such a character and the conflict she faces with the downtrodden condition of widows in those times.

Her best friend in this movie is played by Raima Sen has also been well-handled. Her innocence and her admiration of Aishwarya's capability to speak English and act educated has been done very well. These are indeed some of the prevailing mindsets of those times. We can see how far we have come from such an era!

The movie speaks of womens liberation as subtle line of the story. I found the development of the story very similar to Ghare Bahire also written by Tagore. It does rope in some action from the independence struggle and puts in contrast the struggle for Indian Independence against the silent struggle for womens rights.

A well made movie definitely worth watching. Aishwarya's acting: par excellence. Rituparna has handled the story with great care. Yet another classic from Rabindranath Tagore.

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more (16 total)

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