The Cloud-Capped Star

Set in the aftermath of the 1947 partition of India, which displaced over 10 million people, Ritwik Ghatak's 1960 drama tells the story of a middle-class Bengali family living in poverty on the outskirts of Calcutta. The optimistic and generous Neeta (Supriya Choudhury) becomes the primary breadwinner of the family while her father, a retired schoolteacher turned tutor, grows increasingly fragile, and her self-absorbed siblings pursue their own interests. As she sacrifices her happiness to care for a family that takes her for granted, Neeta’s health suffers and her spirit is broken. Ghatak was a contemporary of Satyajit Ray and The Cloud-Capped Star is closer to Ray's social realist dramas than the popular musicals that dominated India’s film culture, but Ghatak has a very different approach. Ghatak takes on poverty, the plight of the displaced (never directly addressed but alluded to), and women in a culture that neglects their aspirations, all within a melodramatic story that is full of expressionist flourishes, from poetic imagery to the sound of lashes on the soundtrack as Neeta sees her dreams crushed. The film opens on sunny images of breathless beauty and introduces Neeta with a beatific smile and idealistic spirit, but as the family exploits and betrays her, the imagery becomes increasingly dark, and Choudhury's brilliant smile and sparkling eyes become shrouded in exhaustion and disillusionment. A powerful, beautiful, neglected classic of world cinema, the film is presented in a new restoration, with extras including a conversation between filmmakers Saeed Akhtar Mirza and Kumar Shahani on the film’s legacy, a stills gallery, and an essay by film scholar Ira Bhaskar. Highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)