This year, Satyajit Ray's Charulata turns 50. Despite having been made in 1964, the film is yet to be eclipsed in the memory of discerning viewers and remains one of the most beloved and celebrated works in Indian cinema. This begs a question: what is it that has enabled this film, based on a novella by Rabindranath Tagore, stand the test of time?
Charulata is meditative poetry, lingering over the inner turmoil endured by its characters and adding sensitive insight and a melancholic grace to the familiar idea of a love triangle. Bhupati is a well-meaning modern man whose consuming interest in running a newspaper ("The Sentinel”). His work keeps him away from his young and comely wife, Charulata. To provide her gainful company, Bhupati invites his cousin Amal over. Amal's infectious energy and literary bent of mind matches Charulata's and there develops a deep bond between them.
Meanwhile, at The Sentinel, Bhupati is betrayed by his own brother-in-law Umapada, who manages the newspaper's finances. Seeing Bhupati suffer in Umapada's hands, Amal comes to the conclusion that his blossoming romance with Charulata must not come to Bhupati's notice because it might shatter the older man. Amal leaves, Bhupati realises Charulata is pining for Amal, but all three maintain a dignified, melancholic silence.
Charulata was based on Tagore'sNastanirh ("The Broken Nest”) but Ray, who wrote the screenplay in addition to directing the film, refashioned details from Tagore's story. For example, Tagore's Amal was a demanding man. He pesters Charulata to the point of seeming insensitive to her feelings and situation. Charulata's response to him, as Tagore words it, seems almost needy: "That someone should ask her for something-in the whole world this is the only person who asks of her and she cannot bear to leave his desires unfulfilled.” Ray, on the other hand, adds an endearing tenderness to Amal and the gifts he receives from Charulata are given to him freely.
Charulata and Amal's literary pursuits are another aspect of the story that Ray translated to cinema in a way that added nuance and poignancy. Even in Tagore's story, literature brought Charulata and Amal together, but Ray used their shared love of writing to create a haven for Charulata and Amal; one that kept the real world away, one in which they were equals and unburdened by convention and hierarchy.
There's a notebook that Charulata gives Amal in both the novella and the film. She tells him that whatever he writes in it must not be printed elsewhere. When something Amal had written in the notebook is published as an essay in a reputed magazine, it is a breach of trust for Charulata. Their world has been exposed to other people's gazes. In the novella, Amal also makes sure something Charulata had written is published, acknowledging her talent in an act that is in equal parts generous, supportive and arguably patronising.
In the film, Ray, helped by a more modern sensibility, showed Charulata getting her article published on her own merit, without any help from Amal. That she was able to do so made Charulata his equal. At the same time, it showed how differently the two saw their relationship. For Amal, she was an inspiration and she made him a better writer. For Charulata, Amal was the one person with whom she shared a sense of intimacy and no amount of the public recognition that came from published articles was worth the feeling of belonging that Amal gave her.
At the end of the film, Ray makes an obvious departure from the novella even though the filmmaker maintained that this sequence was his translation of Charulata's last word in Tagore's story. In Nashtanirh, after Amal has left, Charulata asks Bhupati if she can accompany him on a trip that he's about to go on and when he hesitates, she says, "Let it be.” Ray recreated those tentative steps that the couple take towards each other as well as the melancholia with a wordless scene: Charulata simply holds out her hand and Bhupati hesitates to take it. The freeze frame shows a page of Bhupati's newspaper lying in the background, the newspaper that was once Charulata's rival for Bhupati's attention and instrumental in bringing her close to Amal.
Incidentally, this ending was actually not in the original script. Ray had originally written that Bhupati would take Charulata's hand and the camera would see them walk to their bedroom, hand in hand. While shooting, however, Ray changed his mind and struck upon the idea of a more open ending and the freeze frame.
Some of Charulata's most beautiful moments are the wordless sequences, shot with mesmerising grace by Ray and his cinematographer Subrata Mitra. The camera spoke using angles, shadows and perspective. The famous sequence showing Charulata on a swing was a feat. The use of binoculars early on in the film perfectly communicated the idea of Charulata as a caged beauty who wants to watch, touch, feel and experience the world but is forced to remain cloistered. Rarely has sadness been both so subtle and so beautiful. The novella, with its wordy sentimentality, certainly doesn't have the restraint that Ray introduced to Tagore's story. Remaining faithful to the plot, Ray removed every sign of excess and every high-strung sentence. The silences made Charulata less naive than Nastanirh and certainly less melodramatic.
Filmmakers rarely name favourites from their career, but Ray echoed the sentiments of many fans when he said that Charulata was the best of his cinematic brood. Of Pather Panchali, which brought Ray to everyone's notice and is still held up as one of world cinema's finest examples, Ray had said that it could do with re-editing because he felt the pace faltered. In Charulata, however, he didn't want to change a thing. Considering how it continues to charm us, it's easy to see why.
Dakshinamurthy is a Mumbai-based writer. Charulata is his favourite Satyajit Ray film.
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