1.0Deep Focus Reviewhttps://www.deepfocusreview.comMaaisha Osmanhttps://www.deepfocusreview.com/author/dmosman/rich600338<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="eyxxZipBV6"><a href="https://www.deepfocusreview.com/satyajit-rays-charulata-calm-without-fire-within/">Satyajit Ray’s Charulata: Calm Without, Fire Within</a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://www.deepfocusreview.com/satyajit-rays-charulata-calm-without-fire-within/embed/#?secret=eyxxZipBV6" width="600" height="338" title="“Satyajit Ray’s Charulata: Calm Without, Fire Within” — Deep Focus Review" data-secret="eyxxZipBV6" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script type="text/javascript"> /* <![CDATA[ */ /*! This file is auto-generated */ !function(d,l){"use strict";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&"undefined"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),c=new RegExp("^https?:$","i"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display="none";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute("style"),"height"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):"link"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute("src")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener("message",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll("iframe.wp-embedded-content"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute("data-secret"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+="#?secret="+t,e.setAttribute("data-secret",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:"ready",secret:t},"*")},!1)))}(window,document); /* ]]> */ </script> Charulata’s eponymous character personifies the alienation afflicting a generation caught between past and present in colonial Bengal. The film is Satyajit Ray’s 1964 adaptation of the Bengali novel Nashtanirh (The Broken Nest) by Rabindranath Tagore, a polymath—as well as poet, novelist, playwright, composer, painter, philosopher, and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who has blended Bengali literature and classical music with contextual modernism. Set in late-nineteenth-century Calcutta when the Bengal Renaissance was at its peak, and India was under British colonial rule, the film revolves around an intelligent, curious, resilient, and well-cultivated young woman named Charulata, played by Madhabi Mukherjee. Around this time, the western education curricula—introduced into British India in 1835—had given rise to a new bourgeois elite, who forged an uneasy cultural and political coalition between Western liberalism and traditional oriental thought. Perhaps no other movie has captured so vividly fin de siècle cultural anxiety, and the personal entanglements it entails, here seen through the lenses of the intellectual class. The contrast between the traditional and modern in Calcutta permeates Ray’s films. At times, it appears as an adversary to his innocent characters (like the eponymous Apu of his trilogy), who suffer the impositions of a changing […]https://www.deepfocusreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/charulata-4.jpg