Synopsis
The tragic story of the beautiful daughter of a middle-class refugee family from East Pakistan. Neeta, the protagonist, sacrifices everything for her unappreciative family.
The Cloud-Capped Star
1960 ‘মেঘে ঢাকা তারা’ Directed by Ritwik Kumar Ghatak
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Alternative Titles
Estrella nublada, Meghe Dhaka Tara
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”Suffer for others and there’ll be no end to your suffering”
A really well directed meditation on family responsibility versus personal ambition, and as much as everyone talks about Ray’s Apu trilogy I’m surprised this film isn’t mentioned more.
Granted, I found it slightly more melodramatic, and the second half feels a bit strung out, but I still think it has moments that are just as emotionally powerful as Satyajit Ray’s famous saga.
BONUS POINTS for the dramatic scene where Nita is walking away from Sanat and it sounds like knives are cutting her.
”Then make a glass case and place me inside like a wax doll” -
striking images -- nita crying in the foreground but out of focus as her mother berates her from behind really stands out. and the sound design can't go unmentioned -- cacophonous, all-encompassing. almost felt like i was watching a 4d melodrama.
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What creates style? Talking about style is easy (to an extent), but finding the motivating factors behind it is difficult. We'll talk about influence in the most common terms (he influenced him, etc), use the context of a nation, or simply point to a theoretical or philosophical system. I found myself pondering this watching Ghatak's "modernist" (a tenuous word) cinema, made in 1960 at the same time Breathless debuts in Paris, L'Avvenutra in Venice, Cruel Story of Youth in Tokyo, Shadows in the United States, and The Housemaid in South Korea.
But Ghatak's formal system even feels like an outlier to the various New Waves cresting around the world. The almost amateur quality to his filmmaking at first feels like…
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In this classic Indian tale of tragedy from a time long before the Spice Girls were promoting Girl Power, Nita watches. She gives. She waits, and then gives some more. A story of diminishing hope as time goes by, Ritwik Ghatak's beautiful imagery feels in many ways like a portrayal of grief. Songs get lost among the trees and riverside landscapes draw the viewer into watery pools of pain alongside a country torn in two.
Times are hard. Life is hard. Hope of a better future is fading.
Melodramatic, creative and sometimes pretty funny, The Cloud-Capped Star certainly wears its many hearts on its sleeve, with almost ritualistic repetition of the ups and downs of life. Surrounded by a family…
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Constructed around an excellent performance from Supriya Choudhury as a selfless young woman named Nita, The Cloud-Capped Star is a transporting drama written and directed from the consistently socially conscious Ritwik Ghatak.
Set in the suburbs of Calcutta, the filmmaker demonstrates some experimental techniques such as assembling some disorienting shots as he laments the adversities and hardships of India. As the narrative attends Nita and her family, all refugees from East Pakistan as a consequence of the traumatic impact of the partitioning of India in 1947, it substantiates being a richly thematic tale which adopts themes of internal division, poverty and self-interest.
The decaying corrosion of Nita's middle-class family becomes moulded into a dramatic form by Ghatak that's equally intellectually…
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”Suffer for others and there’ll be no end to your suffering” -Shankar,
Frustrating.
Families can really suck and this film is one of the ultimate "families can really suck" movies. The story can be so frustrating at times but in an effective way that makes you feel for the lead character. This is my first Ritwik Ghatak and I love his direction and the vibe he creates here. The performances are outstanding.
Great stuff.
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96/100
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His contemporary filmmaker, the GREAT Satyajit Ray once said about him:“In his heart and soul, Ritwik was a Bengali film director, a Bengali artist, much more of a Bengali than myself.”
But watch his destiny! When Ray was infront of world stage, gathering recognitions, innumerable awards.. there in early 60's to the ultimate end of his life, Ritwik Ghatak (who's even nothing less than Ray by all means)had been suffering from alcoholism and mental illness. He was hospitalized for the first time in late 1965. And rest of his brief life upto 1976 is nothing but just bounded in between uncountable ins and outs of consistent medical treatments. Ghatak himself was a refuge..in 40's and 50's Bengal…
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Was not expecting an experimental, mind stimulating picture (it’s not 2001 but you get the point). Ritwik Ghatak was editing sequences that were less Satyajit Ray’s humanist films and more Akira Kurosawa’s samurai joints (the score sounds like a scene out of Ran at parts). While the central story was lacking, its supported by the most gorgeous cinematography and score. It lives through the realm of melodrama, but it isn’t Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham were every emotion is obvious and intensified. Being raised on mainstream Hindi cinema, it was refreshing to see that sub-genre executed with a more innovative style. instead a lot of internal pain and struggle expressed through weird, almost Jonathan Demme-like close-ups and an offbeat, on edge score.…
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"Brother, I want to survive."
Tragic injustice and a harsh reality revolving a noble heart whose physical beauty is merely something symbolic to remind us of her purity. Ritwik Ghatak, a renowned name whose importance easily matches Satyajit Ray, begins his trilogy about the Partition of India in 1947 with overwhelming commitment. Hypocritical figures and visual beauty mixed together sporadically.
95/100
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দাদা, আমি বাঁচতে চাই।
* My first film of Ritwik Ghatak was an overwhelming experience.
*Although melodramatic at various moments it's a masterwork right up there with Pather Panchali and Jalsaghar as the definitive Bengali works of the 20th Century.
* There is something so luminous about a Bengali Women's eyes;
it brims with curiosity,seductiveness,vulnerability and joy at the same time.*Supriya Choudhury is simply devastating to watch. It's one of most heartbreaking performances in World Cinema.
* Ekta Kapoor should be sued for blatantly ripping of the plot for countless worthless serial duds which basically is the same as this movie albeit more ridiculous and dreadful.
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