Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Nessieldwi Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

evening1 I love character-driven film, but this glacially paced work is far too subtle for my tastes. I am a huge fan of director Satyajit Ray, and his Apu trilogy, "The Music Room," and "The Home and the World" are among some of the best films I've ever seen. However, "Charulata" seemed to me a soap opera crafted by an Ingmar Bergman wannabe. I was surprised, given Ray's obvious talents. We have the story here of a very unhappy housewife, a privileged woman married as a child bride to a significantly older man with whom she has nothing in common. One day along comes her "cousin-in-law," an age peer who shares her love of reading, singing, and not being particularly industrious. Over time, it seems that Charulata takes quite a liking to this man, who provides some respite from her brain-numbing lassitude. She takes to hoping that, even though he is single and talented, he will never leave her gilded cage. One day, she loses herself to this sentiment and clings to the man, who shuns her with an icy "Let go of me!" Suddenly, Charulata's husband realizes that there are problems in the marriage and he attempts a radical personality change. I didn't buy a bit of it and it's irking that Ray seems to think I would.I am amazed that the often astute reviewers of imdb consider this a masterpiece.

berfedd Plot: In 1890s India, a wife's relationship with her cousin-in-law disrupts the stability of the whole household.Review: The first ten minutes of this movie are simply of bored housewife, Charulata (Madhabi Mucherjee), wandering about her apartment. It is mesmerising. Other characters appear one by one, all members of her extended family. A male cousin-in-law is something of a soul mate, and they mutually encourage each other to start writing as a pastime, but when he decided to publish his work relationships subtly change.Actually, I wasn't always exactly sure what was going on. I think there were some cultural subtexts at play that I am not at privy to. I was afraid that I might have picked up something tedious, but it was nothing of the sort. It is a beautiful movie. There is a humour and lightness of touch that is very refreshing. I particularly liked the contrast between the newspaper editor husband who clearly takes his work very seriously, and the lack of fulfilment or focus in other people's lives around him. Acting, cinematography, lighting, sound, locations, shot composition, all are done so well, and the story is accessible enough to make it enjoyable to any audience. It's the kind of movie that leaves a pleasurable feeling afterwards, knowing that one has watched something of quality, even if one is not exactly sure why.

Camoo Satyajit Ray is so good at staging his scenes from inside the minds of his characters, and I think it is why he was so successful at crossing over to foreign audiences - his empathy for the people behind his characters. He always reached to get beyond the simple exchange of dialog - watching a Ray film is watching him carefully invade the mind of his creations. Their flaws, their desires, their loves all seem so universal coming from his camera. The photography is one of the greatest joys of Charulata, as in most of his films - the camera feels so free, so unbound to any set formula or rule of how to operate it, the joy of the operator (Ray himself) so apparent. It glides throughout all of his films, playing the eyes of some omniscient presence the characters are sometimes semi aware of. We are jolted when they look into the camera and sing, but because we have been already lulled into his world it feels completely natural that they would sing to us. Charulata is slower, more obtuse than some of Ray's earlier films, and it feels longer. I was underwhelmed by the story, which I felt took too many left turns. But Charulata is a persistently fascinating film, particularly the almost out-of-body performance by Soumitra Chatterjee.

sunrit_majumder-729-944138 Ray tagged Charulata as "one of his favourite films" and as an observer and a Ray-addict, I would call it his most perfect creation out of his 29 films-old filmography. Not a frame is out of place, all the subtle nuances are mesmerisingly captured and detailed almost like a Mughal portrait.The film follows the suppressed sexual emotions of Charulata, whose loneliness is seen through the carelessness of her husband for her and through brilliant metaphors like a bird's cage or the iron grills of a window. Emotional repressions lead to a tumultuous upheaval when Amal, her husband's cousin storms into her life. Ray sets his work in the late 19th century when patriarchal society did not allow a woman to vent out her feelings and adds a distinguished and unique dimension to Rabindranath's novella, "Nashtanirh". The film unfolds in a majestic pace, never too slow and never too fast, through intelligent dialogues and a masterstroke of a screenplay - scenes like the one where Charu uses her binocular to gaze at Amal and then at the mother carrying her child, almost throw the viewers off their feet. Ray's direction is aptly supported by a a viciously sublime performance by the protagonist. Madhabi Mukherjee makes Charulata her own, her spiralling gazes and the movement of those eyes give it the aura of a silent film. She makes Charu an embodiment of most women in that age and even in the future - the angst, the intensity and the pangs culminate in one of the best performances by an actress that the world has ever seen and without doubt, the best in the country. Soumitra Chatterjee amply supports her and brings a beautiful mix of innocence and masculinity to the role ; so does Sailen Mukherjee and the other actors. Tagore's songs set the mood for every emotion in this movie.All in all, its a movie for every hardcore enthusiast who loves cinema and a masterpiece from the master himself. Never again can this magic be recreated!