7.8 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
The lonely wife of a newspaper editor falls in love with her visiting cousin-in-law, who shares her love for literature.
Starring: Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Shailen Mukherjee, Tarapada Basu, Nilotpal DeyForeign | 100% |
Drama | 88% |
Romance | 24% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.37:1
Bengali: LPCM Mono
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (locked)
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.5 |
Winner of Best Director and OCIC Awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, Satyajit Ray's "Charulata" (1964) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion. The supplemental features on the disc include exclusive new video interviews with Madhabi Mukherjee and Soumitra Chatterjee; new video program featuring Indian film scholar Moinak Biswas and Bengali cultural historian Supriya Chaudhuri; and an archival audio interview with director Satyajit Ray conducted by journalist Gideon Bachmann. The release also arrives with a 32-page illustrated booklet featuring film historian Phillip Kemp's essay "Calm Without, Fire Within" and "Ray on Charulata", an interview conducted by Andrew Robinson in Satyajit Ray's home in Calcutta in the mid-'80s, which was translated by the author for this release. In Bengali, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-A "locked".
Charu
Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1, encoded with MPEG-4 AVC and granted a 1080p transfer, Satyajit Ray's Charulata arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of Criterion.
The following text appears inside the booklet provided with this Blu-ray release:
"This new digital master was produced from a restoration undertaken by RDB Entertainments, under the supervision of Kamal Bansal and Varsha Bansal. For their restoration, a digital transfer was created in 2K resolution on ARRISCAN film scanner from the original 35mm camera negative at Pixion in Chennai, India. Due to several instances of sever warps and in the original negative, a few sections were replaced using an original 35mm safety fine grain belonging to the Academy Film Archive. The original monaural soundtrack was restored from the original sound negative.
Project supervisor: Mr. Balaji/Pixion, Chennai, India.
Lead restorers: Mr. Chandrashekhar, Mr.Kiran/Pixion.
Colorists: Mr. Mathews, John Tharyil/Pixion."
This very beautiful film looks quite extraordinary on Blu-ray. I have a DVD copy of it in my library and after running some direct comparisons I have to say that the improvements in clarity and image depth have to be seen to be believed. The beach footage, in particular, looks exceptional (see screencaptures #5 and 19). The footage from Bhupati's lavish home where Charu spends most of her time also boasts some terrific clarity and fluidity - there sequences where even tiny objects are remarkably easy to see (see screencaptures #7 and 16). The overall balance between the blacks, whites, and the variety of grays is also very pleasing. There are a few sequences where sharpness levels have a tendency to fluctuate, but these fluctuations are indeed source related (see screencapture #14). Furthermore, there are no traces of excessive degraining corrections. Problematic sharpening adjustments have not been performed either. Overall image stability is dramatically improved. Also, it is clear that debris, large damage marks, cuts, stains, and dirt have been removed as best as possible. All in all, considering how problematic so many presentations of the legendary Bengali director's films have been on DVD, this new restoration of Charulata is really quite the revelation. (Note: This is a Region-A "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-A or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).
There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: Bengali LPCM 1.0. For the record, Criterion have provided optional English subtitles for the main feature.
Overall dynamic intensity is rather limited, but clarity and depth are very pleasing. I can also tell that various stabilizations have been performed and background hiss removed because there is a very obvious difference between the lossy track from the R2 DVD release and the lossless track. For the record, there are no pops, audio dropouts, or distortions to report in this review. The English translation is excellent.
Recently restored and earlier this year screened in the Classics section of the Cannes Film Festival, legendary Bengali director Satyajit Ray's beautiful film Charulata has now transitioned to Blu-ray. Having seen a number of Ray films on DVD during the years, I honestly think that this new restoration of Charulata is quite extraordinary. As cliche as it may sound at this point, I think that it is appropriate to repeat one more time that this is a very special time to be a film collector because we are seeing some of the greatest films ever made looking as good or even better as when they first entered cinemas around the world many years ago. Buy with confidence, folks. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
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