The Music Room

Graceful, melancholy, and directed with reserved elegance, this 1958 film from legendary Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray takes a simultaneously sympathetic and disparaging look at India's feudal system as it fades into irrelevance. Set in the 1920s, The Music Room stars Chhabi Biswas as Huzur Biswambhar Roy, a once powerful lord living in his crumbling palace as modernity passes him by. Roy's love of music takes a wide toll, both on the management of his lands and fortune, and the attention paid to his family. Roy's station in life continues to decline as the story progresses, his plight playing out against that of his neighbor Mahim (Gangapada Basu), a vulgar and ambitious businessman who represents “new money.” Song-and-dance interludes that Ray routinely eschewed in his earlier features are included here, and while these private performances by revered singers and dancers help illustrate Roy's wealth (and also add a tragic dimension to the flawed hero), they also have value as wonderful archival cinematic preservations of India's classical musical arts of the time. A powerful drama that is still considered one of Ray's masterpieces, this DVD re-release and Blu-ray debut are remastered from the 1995 restoration, and feature a superb collection of extras, including an excellent 1984 feature-length documentary about Ray, a brief 1981 French TV roundtable discussion with Ray, new interviews with Ray biographer Andrew Robinson and filmmaker Mira Nair, and a booklet. Highly recommended. (S. Axmaker)