Charulata: Bringing Together Generations

The 1964 Indian Bengali film, Charulata, is highly regarded as one of the most outstanding achievements in Indian cinema. Based on the novel Nastanirh by Rabindranath Tagore and directed by the evergreen Satyajit Ray, it features Madhabi Mukherjee as the titular character, Soumitra Chatterjee as the infamous Amal and Shailen Mukherjee as Bhupati Dutta, Charulata’s husband.

The film takes place in Calcutta in the nineteenth century when India was still under British rule. In the beginning, it depicts Charulata, an intelligent, beautiful and creatively challenged woman, feeling bored and purposeless in her empty, housewife life. This is shown in the scene when she is seen to become overly excited at watching the mere movements of strangers through her binoculars. Her husband, an intellectual, mostly stays preoccupied with the editing and publication of his political newspaper, not giving much of his time to his wife. Noticing his wife’s boredom, he adopts the idea of inviting her brother and his wife to help him out with his newspaper and to provide Charulata with much needed company to fill out the lonely hours of her day. Amal, Bhupati’s younger cousin, who recently finished his studies, comes to stay with them as well, making the once lonely house lively.

Amal is assigned by his cousin to help nurture the creative talents and cultural interests of Charulata. This leads to the development of an unforeseeable intimate relationship between Amal and Charulata, due to their mutual admiration of literature and poetry. He even encourages her to start writing and one of her works even manages to get published in a prestigious literary magazine. Amal gradually realizes that the relationship they have is not platonic anymore and that Charulata has genuine feelings of romantic nature for him.

Around the same time, disaster strikes the household when Charulata’s brother and his wife exploit the trusting nature of Bhupati and flee with his money, ruining Bhupati and bringing an untimely end to his newspaper. He confides his grievances to Amal, telling him that he is the one he trusts now. Overcome with the guilt of the knowledge that he would be betraying his cousin as well if he continues with his relationship with Charulata, he leaves the house the next day, explaining in a letter that he did not want to be a burden to them at such a difficult time. Charulata is obviously upset with the news but suppresses her emotions in front of her husband. However, when they receive another letter, Charulata breaks down crying and Bhupati, on accidentally seeing this, realizes that Amal and his wife has a deeper relationship than that he had known. With feelings of betrayal and bewilderment clouding his judgement once again, he leaves the house in a rush and wanders around in his carriage, trying to gather his thoughts. The film ends with Bhupati reaching for Cahrulata’s extended hand and this shot remains frozen, signifying a broken moment in their marriage.

This film artfully combines the portrayal of Bengal culture, literature and sentiments, with a wistful story of unrequited love at the wrong place at the wrong time to produce a cinematic masterpiece, which is still prevalent and widely admired in today’s generation of cinephiles. The film allows the viewers to interpret the meaning behind certain scenes which are carefully crafted with subtlety and undertones of emotions. It almost seems the film is smirking in your face at times, as you stare in awe at the magnificent cinematography or when you try to decipher a scene or when you cannot help but smile at the witty dialogue. It is heart breaking oftentimes, when you cannot help but sympathize with Bhupati as he goes through different levels of betrayals by people he thought were closest to him. Overall, the film was a wonderful and meaningful watch, and although it will take me several decades of studying cinema to interpret the true significance of this film, it has already taken hold of a special place in my heart.