Tonight's movie was called "The Cloud-Capped Star"(1960), directed by Ritwik Ghatak of India. It's a brand new release from Criterion, telling the story of Nita, the adult daughter of a poverty stricken Bengali couple. Her father is an eccentric parttime schoolteacher who reads Wordsworth, but the pants in the family are worn by her mother, a shrew with a sharp tongue who constantly lashes out at Nita and her three siblings. Mama is always worrying about money, so she can make ends meet. Papa barely earns a salary, but still maintains his facade of being a middle class gentleman. The only person in the household with a steady income is Nita, who tutors local students while working on her Master's Degree at the nearby university. She is studying to become a teacher like her fussy father.
Nita has an older brother named Shankar whom she idolises, even though he takes advantage of her. He is practicing to become a singer, and has genuine talent, but he's also a mooch, hitting Nita up for a "tenner" every time she gets paid. The mother saves special ire for Shankar, telling him to get a job, calling him dead weight on the family who eats for free and does nothing to contribute. But Nita loves her brother. She has a photograph taken when they were little and the only two children yet born. Nita keeps it close by her bedside because it reminds her of happier times. Shankar has the soul of an artist. He still treats Nita like a baby sister, but he also encourages her to follow her dreams. His pet name for her is "Idiot", but it is said with love and humor. Nita knows her brother needs her, and she accepts him for who he is. She knows he will make it as a singer and tells him so.
As Nita works hard to support her family, a young man from the university becomes interested. He is Sanat, a handsome physics student who is also pursuing a degree in order to move up in the world at a time when India was rising out of the middle ages. Nita's parents like Sanat. Dad likes him because he is educated, Mom likes him because of the promise of more money if he marries Nita (Mom only cares about money), but Sanat has a roving eye, and he catches the attention of Nita's younger sister Gita, a sultry seductress with the sensibilities of a Valley Girl. All Gita cares about is shopping, for new Saris and makeup. She doesn't have the money for these things, so she uses another reliable currency - her looks and her smile, to charm Sanat away from her angelic, responsible sister. The next thing you know, Sanat and Gita are engaged to be married, and Nita the good girl is left in the lurch.
The fourth sibling, a brother named Mantu, is leaving the family hovel to take work in a factory, but only because he has been selected for their soccer team. Mantu is glad to be out, even if it means hard manual labor. He will even return on occasion to contribute part of his salary to the family coffers, but he wants nothing more to do with the instability inside that home.
Everything is on Nita's shoulders. The rest of the family depends on her entirely, and now it looks as though she will need to quit the university and take a second job, because the rent is overdue and the grocer will no longer extend credit. On the surface, Nita seems happy to oblige. No sacrifice is too great for her, so long as she can help her family, and in fact you can see in her expression that she enjoys her martyr role, because with it she becomes Head Of The Family over her ineffectual father and her griping mother, who bitches about everything but has never contributed anything of value to her children.
It's all a bit soap opera-ish, and reminiscent in plot of some of Yajuhiro Ozu's Daughter Dramas like "Late Spring" or "Early Summer", both starring the great Setsuko Hara. Cinematically the film resembles the work of Ghatak's legendary countryman Satyajit Ray, yet Ghatak goes further with his brilliant camerawork, often framing his actors against fluttering patterns of light. His nighttime photography is stunning and reminded me of the imagery of another Japanese director, Kenzo Mizoguchi, whose movies also depicted deep suffering. Ghatak also uses a European technique, perhaps made famous by Bergman or Antonioni, where he will frame two actors facing the camera at different depths and angles. The closer one will look at the corner of the frame while the one in back, usually the character of Nita, will recite her dialogue poetically with a dreamy-eyed smile on her face. It appears as if Ghatak has many influences, but he uses them to create a work wholly his own. This is a tremendous looking film with a musical backdrop than runs through the entirety like a form of narration.
At 139 minutes, ir's a tad long and very slow in parts, but then it's an art film and meant to affect the viewer as more than simple entertainment. Watching it reminded me of my nights at the former CSUN Cinematheque, where Professor Tim would begin the evening with a lecture on the movie and it's director. Man, I miss The Professor and our Thursday Nights at the Cinematheque!
This is one of those movies that I cannot recommend highly enough. The actors are uniformly excellent and again, the photography and soundtrack and absolutely stunning. As with many foreign films, you'll have to have patience, but you'll be richly rewarded in return.
Two Gigantic Thumbs Up for "The Cloud-Capped Star". Apparently, the films of Ritwik Ghatak have been tied up for a long time by contractual matters or even lack of perceived interest, but now that this masterpiece has been restored, hopefully we can look forward to more from this unusual director, who himself was a schizophrenic and severe alcoholic who died at age 50. ////
That's all for now. It's Saturday afternoon and we're gonna try for a hike. "We" means you and me, remember? So I'll meet ya at the trail and then I'll see you back here at the Usual Time later tonight.
Tons and tons of love! xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
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