THE MUSIC ROOM (Criterion/eOne, 1958) D: Satyajit Ray, w/ Chhabi Biswas, Padmadevi. Rating: NNNN DVD package: NNNNN Rating: NNNN
Satyajit Ray’s moving tale of the decline of a feudal lord in 1920s Bengal unfolds with an austerity and elegiac tone that gives weight to small details and invites us to contemplate both the man’s state of mind and the drama of social change playing in the background.
Huzur Biswambhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas) mopes in his decaying palace. He’s blown much of a dwindling family fortune on lavish musical recitals. News that his despised neighbour, a rich commoner with cultural pretensions, is hosting a recital prompts him to spend the last of his money on one final soirée.
With little dialogue, Biswas sympathetically portrays a man heedlessly committed to his aristocratic station though he’s lost his joy in living.
Even if you’re not familiar with Indian classical music, there’s no mystery about the emotions it cues on the soundtrack.
Indian musical forms are explained in the extras, and the film itself is thoroughly discussed in interviews, essays and a very good feature-length doc on Ray’s career.
EXTRAS Feature-length doc on Ray, director Mira Nair interview, Ray biographer interview, archival TV panel with Ray, essay booklet. Traditional frame. B&w. Bengali audio. English subtitles.
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