Charulata(The Lonely Wife) is my favourite film from the great Indian director Satyajit Ray. With the exception of directors such as Hitchcock, Chaplin, Kurosawa and Bergman, very few film directors have ever had as much control over their respective projects as Satyajit Ray had over his: working as director, producer, scriptwriter, as well as creating his own storyboards and marketing materials. Charulata was Ray’s eleventh feature and was his favourite from amongst his own work. It is arguably the most personal film that he ever made.
Surprisingly the film was not accepted at the 1965 Cannes Film Festival, a decision that led to protests from fellow directors including David Lean and Ingmar Bergman. It was however shown at the Berlin Film Festival that year, where it won Ray the coveted Silver Bear for Best Director. Charulata is based upon the 1901 novella Nastanirh(The Broken Nest), written by the Bengali author, poet and playwright, Rabindranath Tagore, who was a friend of Satyajit Ray’s father, the author Sukumar Ray.
The story is widely believed to have been inspired by Tagore’s relationship with his sister-in-law Kadambari Devi(who inexplicably committed suicide in 1884, just four months after Rabindranath was married) and his elder brother. In 1913, Rabindranath Tagore became the first Indian person – and the first non-European – to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. He was also a key figure in the Bengal Renaissance, a movement that lasted from the 18th century into the 20th and led to a widespread socio-political awakening in science, the arts, religion, philosophy etc, leading to major social reforms and new ways of thinking. One of Tagore’s greatest achievements was founding the Visva-Bharati University in 1921. Visva-Bharati was a college until India gained its independence from British rule in 1947. The college was granted University status in 1951 by an act of Parliament. Satyajit Ray enrolled as a student there in 1940 to study Fine Art. Tagore’s work featured in Ray’s films long before he adapted Nastanirh; in 1961 he made the documentary Rabindranath Tagore, and he also directed the anthology film Three Girls, which was based on some of Tagore’s short stories.
Charulata offers a masterful portrayal of a slowly crumbling marriage in addition to focusing upon the issues of loneliness, stifled potential and the fundamental need of every human being to forge a connection with at least one other person. The film is set in the scorching heat of 1880’s Calcutta. The Bengali Renaissance is at its height and there is growing talk amongst the Indian population about them gaining their independence from the British Raj. Bhupati(Sailen Mukherjee)is the owner and editor of a weekly newspaper, in which such topical and dangerous political discussion is often featured. His long work hours and dedication to his job means that he ends up somewhat neglecting his younger and highly intelligent wife Charu (Madhabi Mukherjee). The pair have become more like friends who share a house, rather than devoted spouses who adore one another. We see how disconnected they have become, and we also see how Charu aches with loneliness, even when she is standing right next to Bhupati and is talking with him.
Charu is lonely and wants more in her life than simply organising her household and reading the books and magazines in their quite substantial home library. Sensing her loneliness, Bhupati invites Charu’s brother Umapada(Shyamal Ghoshal) and fun-loving sister-in-law Mandakini(Gitali Roy) to keep Charu company. This younger couple may seem loved-up, but we soon realise that their relationship perhaps isn’t as ideal as it seems at first glance. Bhupati’s younger cousin Amal(Soumitra Chatterjee) also arrives to stay(his arrival symbolically preceded by the huge windstorm that throws Charu’s tidy house into chaos and disarray). Amal shares Charu’s passion for literature and literary discussion. The pair become very close and day by day their friendship deepens into mutual love. For the first time in her life Charu feels valued and truly seen. Bhupati begins to realise what he is at risk of losing and seeks to reconnect with Charu. Who will she choose? Our sympathies lie equally with Bhupati, Charu and Amal throughout the story. All three of them are likable and none of them are painted as a villain or have any blame laid squarely at their feet alone. In this regard the film is similar to William Wyler’s Dodsworth(1936). With its story of a woman struggling to find her own identity, while also finding herself torn between two very different men and two different types of love, Charulata also serves as the cinematic twin to David Lean’s The Passionate Friends(1949).
Charulata is notable for being told almost entirely from the perspective of the main female character. From the very first shot of the film we see through Charu’s eyes and quickly come to understand that she is a capable and intelligent woman trapped inside two prisons: one being the beautiful gilded cage of boredom that is her home, and the other being the patriarchal system which governs both her country and her sex. Interestingly, Ray’s camera never subjects Charu to the male gaze, instead her story is shown entirely through the female gaze, most notably in key moments where Charu begins to feel romantically towards Amal and becomes more physically aware of his presence, gestures and emotions when they are together. The growing mutual attraction and emotional connection between the pair develops naturally, gradually and subtly. Glances and the smallest of gestures speak volumes in every scene they share.
Charu is also shown to be constantly watching and paying close attention to everyone and everything around her. Charu sees everything and misses nothing. Nowhere in the film is this more evident than in the almost totally silent opening sequence, in which Charu is seen quickly moving from window to window inside her house – in much the same way that a fly or bee will flutter around desperately looking for an opening in a window through which they can escape – in order to gaze down upon the throngs of people walking around the street outside. She carries a pair of opera glasses in her hand which she uses from time to time in order to get closer views of particular people or interactions. Watching the world outside serves as her daily mental escape from the tedium of her stifled existence. Madhabi Mukherjee’s extraordinary performance as Charu is at the heart of the film. She is especially superb in the scenes where we become aware that Charu is falling for Amal, but we also see that at times he appears to be seemingly blind to her growing feelings for him. We see her visibly brighten when he enters a room or when they read and write in the garden. Her pleasure and longing when he is near her is evident on her face and in her body language.
Madhabi’s performance as Charu was the second of three that she would deliver for Ray during an all too short-lived collaboration, which began the previous year with The Big City, and ended with The Coward in 1965. The pair did some of their best work together, but Madhabi sadly never quite seemed to reach the same career heights again that she enjoyed while working with Ray. Soumitra Chatterjee(best known for portraying the adult Apu in Ray’s acclaimed Apu Trilogy) is superb as Amal. His is perhaps the most subtle but important performance from amongst the main trio, as he conveys Amal’s hesitancy to admit his growing romantic feelings for Charu and to act on them. Sailen Mukherjee plays the most interesting and key character of the film for me. He perfectly convinces as the kind, driven and well-meaning man, who has become so lost in outside developments that he has somewhat lost sight of his personal life. If played in a different way, I think that Bhupati could so easily have become unlikable, but Sailen does a terrific job of humanising him and making him frustrating but understandable. Ray ends the film on a freeze frame for the ages: showing two hands tentatively reaching out towards each other, as he leaves it up to us to imagine what lies ahead from this moment on. Charulata reminds us that often the greatest journey two human beings can embark upon, is not one which takes hundreds or thousands of miles, but one which takes just two or three steps towards the person standing or sitting in front of you.