“Charulota” by Satyajit Rai (India)

The 66th Cannes Film Festival is marking the centennial of Indian cinema with a retrospective screening of the melodrama “Charulota,” directed by Satyajit Rai and released in 1964.

At present, all the masterpieces of Satyajit Rai, the talented director who rose to prominence on the cinematic Olympus from his first films, are being consecutively digitized in the homeland of Satyajit Rai. Charulota, the childless wife of a financially and intellectually wealthy Bengali public figure, has to live in loneliness and solitude amidst the many beautiful and spacious rooms of a luxurious mansion in Calcutta. The winds of change are blowing outside the windows at this time. Her husband, Bhupati, influenced by Mill and Bentham, spends his large inherited fortune to publish a liberal political weekly in English promoting the ideals of brotherhood, freedom and equality for all. Her husband has no time at all for the bored and isolated Charulota, who cannot find any occupation in a house full of servants. The situation changes dramatically with the arrival in their home of Amal, Bhupati’s young, full of energy nephew. At the sincere initiative of her spouse, a close friendship develops between Charulota and Amal based on a shared interest in literary works. However, behind the screen of intellectual games, a deeper sense of affection and need for each other has gradually emerged. Both Amal and Charulota are at first unaware of their relationship, which, however, society will never approve ..