Quote:
Jalsaghar opens to the shot of a large, ornate, candlelit chandelier, precariously swaying from the momentum of its cumbersome weight. It is a vestige of the fading grandeur of Huzur Biswambhar Roy’s (Chhabi Biswas) cherished jalsaghar – the elegant entertainment room where guests listen to the performance of traditional musicians amid eroded columns and peeling plaster. In early twentieth century India, it is also a symptom of Roy’s aristocratic obsolescence. Roy lounges on his empty rooftop terrace, overlooking his inherited property, now worthlessly reduced to marshland, staring idly into space, smoking his hookah pipe. His wealthy, but uncultured neighbor, Mahim Ganguly (Gangapada Basu), has hired traveling players for his son’s Sacred Thread Ceremony, and Roy is angered by Ganguly’s ostentatious display of extravagance. After being informed that Ganguly had invited him to the ceremony, Roy refuses to attend, citing Ganguly’s negligence in failing to personally extend an invitation to the revered mazumdar (feudal lord). Recalling his own son Khoka’s (Pinaki Sen Gupta) Sacred Thread Ceremony, Roy retreats into a world of lost memories, and reveals the sad and tragic portrait of obstinacy and hubris that led to his idle complacency, personal tragedy, and self-imposed isolation.

Satyajit Ray creates a dispassionate and objective, yet profound and engaging examination of decadence and obsolescence in Jalsaghar. By embodying subtle themes during the performance of the private concerts, Ray depicts an increasingly self-destructive pattern of excess and desperation. The first performance, in commemoration of Khoka’s Sacred Thread Ceremony, is a traditional concert, and serves as a narcissistic reassurance of Roy’s prominence and social stature, despite his disappearing wealth. The second performance, impetuously arranged in order to thwart Ganguly’s own housewarming plans, features an enigmatic, non-native old man. Occurring amid signs of an impending, catastrophic storm, the concert serves as an ominous harbinger to an unknown, looming tragedy. The final performance, a “new” repertoire combining song and dance, is frenetic and mesmerizing, and sharply contrasts with Roy’s self-indulgent lethargy. Figuratively, like the consuming rivalry between Roy and Ganguly, the familiarity of tradition has been displaced by the vitality of the modern. Inevitably, Roy is left alone to savor the intoxicating oblivion of his Phyrric victory, only to be sobered by the emergence of a spider from his portrait. Like the noble ancestors adorning the great walls of the jalsaghar, he too, is a languishing, superfluous relic.

1.60GB | 1h 38mn | 768×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/7AFAB7042E83C00/Satyajit_Ray_-_(1958)_The_Music_Room.mkv

Language:Bengali
Subtitles:English

The post Satyajit Ray – Jalsaghar AKA The Music Room (1958) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Summary
A wealthy family from Calcutta is on the last day of their vacation in Darjeeling, a hill station at the foot of Mount Kanchenjungha, the second highest peak of the Himalayas. Until now, they have been unable to catch a glimpse of the peak Kanchenjungha.The family members are dominated by the father, Indranath (Chhabi Biswas), an industrialist. He wants his daughter to marry a man of his choice and hopes that the man will propose if they are left together alone for some time.

Several long walks and long conversations form the main body of the film. The real-time drama unfolds the daughter’s feelings about her father’s idea, and the negative reactions to this by her mother and others.

By accident, she meets an outsider, Ashoke, a young student who has refused a job offer from Indranath…

1.37GB | 41m 58s | 640×496 | avi

https://nitro.download/view/26F111BE2765703/Kanchenjungha.cd1.avi https://nitro.download/view/E4BFE4D4969DD7D/Kanchenjungha.cd2.avi

Language:Bengali
Subtitles:English hardsubbed

The post Satyajit Ray – Kanchenjungha (1962) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Synopsis
One of Satyajit Ray’s greatest early films, full of sensuality and ironic undertones, Devi is sufficiently critical of Hindu superstition that it was banned from foreign distribution until Nehru interceded. The plot concerns a wealthy and devout landowner in the 19th century who believes his daughter-in-law (Sharmila Tagore) is the reincarnation of the goddess Kali and convinces her that he’s right. With Soumitra Chatterji and Chhabi Biswas.
Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

2.09GB | 1h 39mn | 790×576 | mkv

https://nitro.download/view/0AE0F564A7FD3BA/Devi.1960.576p.BluRay.AAC.1.0.x264-KG.mkv

Language:Bengali
Subtitles:English

The post Satyajit Ray – Devi AKA The Goddess (1960) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

SYNOPSIS

From IMDb:
The film is adapted from a story called Hungry Stones by Rabindranath Tagore. A tax collector posted to a small town puts up at a mansion feared by the locals because it is haunted. As time passes he grows more consumed by the mansion and its air of romance, and the spirits that haunt it, especially a beautiful woman.

From the back of the case:
A Tax collector, who is inclined to the works of Ancient art and culture, came to a rural city for his job. But he chooses to live in a haunted house. Another Bengali person from the local village and his colleagues actually informed him about the danger of living in that fort. But the person is basically fascinated by that piece of ancient work. At night he started to meet a dancer and developed a relationship with her. Slowly they beginning to wait for each other and thus they entered in to a relationship. But he then slowly realizes that this is a supernatural phenomenon and that girl is nothing but a ghost. So he tries to stay away from the fort but he cannot resist it.

https://nitro.download/view/F25FB2BF16EE85F/Khudito_Pashan_(1960).avi

Language:Bengali, Hindi, English
Subtitles:English (burnt-in)

The post Tapan Sinha – Khudito Pashan AKA The Hungry Stones (1960) first appeared on Cinema of the World.