Charulata (1964)

The lonely wife of a newspaper editor falls in love with her visiting cousin-in-law, who shares her love for literature.

Director:

Satyajit Ray

Writers:

Rabindranath Tagore (from the story "Nastaneer"), Satyajit Ray (scenario)

Stars:

Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Shailen Mukherjee

Top Rated Indian Movies #17 | 2 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Soumitra Chatterjee	...	Amal
Madhabi Mukherjee	...	Charulata
Shailen Mukherjee	...	Bhupati Dutta (as Sailen Mukherjee)
Shyamal Ghoshal	...	Umapada
Gitali Roy	...	Mandakini
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tarapada Basu
Gopaldas Bhattacharya
Dilip Bose	...	Shashanka
Ramesh Chandra Chandra
Sunilkanta Dasgupta
Nilotpal Dey	...	Joydeb
Bankim Ghosh	...	Jagannath
Ajit Gupta
Bholanath Koyal	...	Braja
Kamu Mukherjee

Storyline

Charu lives a lonely and idle life in 1870s India. Although her husband Bhupati devotes more time to his newspaper than to their marriage, he sees her loneliness and asks his brother-in-law,Umapada to keep her company. At the same time Bhupati's own cousin, Amal, a would-be writer comes home finishing his college education. However, after several months, Charu and Amal's feelings for each other move beyond literary friendship.

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Plot Keywords:

newspaper | literature | loneliness | poetry | kaleidoscope image | 

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Genres:

Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

India

Language:

Bengali English

Release Date:

17 April 1964 (India)

Also Known As:

Charulata

Box Office

Gross USA:

$77,820

Company Credits

Production Co:

R.D.Banshal & Co.

Technical Specs

Runtime:

117 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

"The Exile of Seeta (Sita)" is the story of the exiling of Seeta, the goddess consort of the god Vishnu (also known as Rama). Vishnu exiled Seeta after she had been rescued from imprisonment. Seeta had been away from her husband's home and this was not acceptable culturally, even though Seeta had been chaste in her imprisonment.

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Goofs

when Bhupati shows Amal his weekly newspaper 'The Sentinel', it can be seen that it is published every Saturday and the date shown is 7 April 1879 but actually 7 April 1879 was Monday.

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Connections

Referenced in The Darjeeling Limited (2007)

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Soundtracks

God Save The Queen
(uncredited)
Music by Thomas Augustine Arne
Played on the Piano by Amol (Kumar Basu)

User Reviews

Beautiful.

The film is the masterpiece from Satyajit ray. Even he confessed that it was his best work. The film is obviously the slowest that I have ever seen but its beauty lies in the fact that it gradually develops the relationships and emotions which is very difficult to be filmed. The story revolves around a woman named Charulata who has an inherent talent of writing but is not able to make use of this. She finds it very difficult to pass her time. Brother of her husband comes to live with them and then she started to find solace in his company. How relationships gradually changed as the time passed is portrayed beautifully in this wonderful film from a master filmmaker.

PROS:

The best thing I found in the film was the acting by Charu. Her eyes said more than was required. Cinematography too was nice and noticeable. The development of affection between two people is the key strength here. The film is definitely slow paced but it certainly kept me interested every minute. The thing that I liked in the cinematography most was the very slow movement of the camera around the two people when they were talking. The story is good and normal but the way it was perceived by Ray and his power to display it is fantastic.

MESSAGE: "Some things just happen. You cannot have control over them."

VERDICT: "Most recommended Indian Film."