Tetrady not as good as all the hype

Cleveronix A different way of telling a story

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Gary The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

gavin6942 The lonely wife (Madhabi Mukherjee) of a newspaper editor (Sailen Mukherjee) falls in love with her visiting cousin-in-law (Soumitra Chatterjee), who shares her love for crafting literature.I make no secret of the fact that I simply do not care for Indian films. I can't really express why, but they do not appeal to me. With regard to Ray, I was not moved by the Apu trilogy. However, after seeing "The Music Room" (1958) I found there was at least one Indian film I liked.And now "Charulata". Much has been written about how this film has more of a Western sense to it, even invoking the name of Mozart. That may be so. But I also appreciate that at this point Ray had access to better equipment, apparently. Cinematography-wise, this is his best-looking film, and he experiments a little bit in a dreamlike way that I find very effective. We have the right balance -- not that low grade film India had in the past, and not the overly polished junk of Bollywood. This and "Music Room" may be the pinnacle of Indian film.

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.

Abhishek Saha Charulata is Satyajit Ray's masterpiece. No other movie is so brilliantly subtle, so timeless in quality. Indeed, Ray himself described Charulata as the only flawless movie he had directed.Like the Apu trilogy, and many other Ray movies, Charulata deals with universal themes. Unlike the Apu trilogy, Charulata is set in an urbane, intellectual setting. This might be a turn off for some foreign viewers. When it was released in India in 1964, it was deemed controversial because of its depiction of an extramarital relationship. Yet no movie Ray made, not even the celebrated Apu trilogy, treats the themes of love, growth and loyalty with as much insight and sensitivity as Charulata.Every scene in this movie is a gem, there are nuances in every movement, poetry in each look. Richly deserving multiple viewing, Charulata is the most perfect Ray movie.