Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

treywillwest I've never before been so impressed with Ray's use of camera movement. He and DP Subrata Mitra create master shots that become close-ups with a subtle virtuosity that both impresses without aesthetically forcing itself on the fragile drama of the narrative. Close-ups are, indeed, imperative to this film. It's all about the repressed desires of the subjects of 19th century, colonialized India, and the most profound and intimate impulses of its characters are never stated but communicated through facial expressions. The acting, in this respect, is extraordinary, especially from Madhabi Mukherjee, who plays the title character, a house wife of a workaholic husband who possesses an unexplored literary gift which is ignited by her attraction to her husband's poet cousin. The lighting is also exceptional. Ray and Mitra create motion pictures that look like the still photographs of the film's temporal setting. Shots that depict two characters highlight the longing, and distance, between the figures. Ray's use of still frames to semi-tell of moments of extreme intimacy feel all the more natural as a result of the lighting scheme.

MartinHafer Recently, I received some very nice emails from someone who appreciated my reviews (there's at least one!) and they recommended I look into the films of Satyajit Ray--particularly "The Big City" and "The Lonely Wife". I am happy I listened, as I really liked both films--particularly "The Big City". The best thing about these films is their ordinariness--how they are about everyday folks and the films are not glamorized or Hollywoodized in the least. The unfortunate thing, however, is that both are pretty lousy prints with relatively poor captions--and both appear to be directly copied from a videotape.Now what I saw in the film and what the summary says are not exactly the same. Perhaps this is due to a mistranslation, or perhaps when the husband says 'brother' it's a diminutive term and the person he's saying it to is actually his cousin, but I sure was under the impression that Amal was Bhapati's brother.Charlu is a lonely lady back in India in 1879. Her husband is the publisher of a newspaper--so she lives in relative luxury but doesn't see enough of him, as he's very busy. So, Bhapati gets the idea to have his family come and live with them. The brother-in-law seems like a good choice to move in with them, as he says he wants to work on the paper and contribute. Amal, however, is a recent college graduate and is not at all interested in doing any work--just write. Quickly Amal and Charlu become friends, as both of them have a common interest--writing. However, this familiarity combined with Bhapati's absence spell disaster--as does trusting the brother-in-law with the paper's finances. There's more to the story than this, but it's best you see it yourself and see it unfold.The acting, writing and direction are very nice--mostly because it seems awfully real. And, if you like Neo-realist films or stories by Majid Majidi, then you should really like "The Lonely Wife". Not great but very, very good.

dromasca This is the first film of Satyajit Ray that I have seen, and probably one of the first if not the first non-westernized Indian films. Most of my previous viewings like the wonderful Monsoon Wedding by Mira Nair were made by directors who live and created in Hollywood. This wonderful film made in 1964 is even more a revelation, as its director is a master, contemporary and at the same level as the best directors of his generation.The setting of the story is in Calcutta's high society of the end of the 19th century, in a period of social and national conflict that is all the time on the background but is not really the center of the story. Based on a story by Rabindranath Tagore, almost all the conflict happens in the house of the wealthy journalist and newspaper owner Bupathi, which is filmed with refinement in all its details by the master camera of Subrata Mitra. My feeling after the first scenes was that I am watching a play by Ibsen or Chekhov transplanted in a different continent and this feeling was induced not only by the one set staging but also or especially by the strong character of the principal character, Bupathi's beautiful wife Charulata. We immediately feel her loneliness, her need to connect with people, her emotional capacity which he represses by watching the human landscape of the street. When Buphati will being his younger brother Amal in the house, the two will become involved, in a never consumed forbidden relationship that is intense and discreet. As proving or acting openly according to sentiments is not part of the culture the characters belong to, Charulata will prove her sentiments by demonstrating her creative and intellectual qualities, in a world and a time dominated by men. The ending may look like a melodrama, but it's perfectly plausible.Charulata is acted by Madhabi Mukherjee in a flawless and sensible performance that reminds Yasujiro Ozu's preferred actress Setsuko Hara. It is not however the only aspect that reminded me the Japanese master. The vibration of nature in 'Charulata' complements and amplifies the feelings of the heroes, same as in Ozu's movies. The reliance on actors to describe feelings to the most subtle of the nuances, the delicacy and dignity of the relations, the quite storytelling and the control of story time seem all to belong to the same school of cinema that puts actors and camera work in the center of the art of film making. Ray's cinema has more of a social and historical context though, at least in this film. There is also a key difference in the camera work approach. While both directors control the art of framing and build beautiful and memorable scenes, there is much more dynamics in Ray's camera movement, with daring shots that represent much more the characters view of the world than the director's view as at Ozu.'Charulata' was for me one of these revelations of a new world that happens once in a awhile in the life of a cinema lover. One more proof that good cinema transcends genres and film schools, and succeeds at best when it talks directly to the hearts of the viewers.

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.