Rating summary

Movie		5.0
Video		5.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		4.0

The Lonely Wife Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Svet Atanasov August 10, 2013

Winner of Best Director and OCIC Awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, Satyajit Ray's "Charulata" (1964) arrives on Blu-ray courtesy of British distributors Artificial Eye. There are no supplemental features on this release. In Bengali, with optional English subtitles for the main feature. Region-B "locked".

In the beautiful cage

The film is set in 1870s Calcutta and the overwhelming majority of it takes place inside the lavish home of an ambitious and very patriotic newspaper editor who rarely has time to talk to his beautiful wife. He loves her, but he loves his country even more. Knowing well that the future of India will likely be determined by the winners in the upcoming elections in England, he writes articles that frequently highlight the views promoted by the Liberal Party.

During an unusually hot summer day, Bhupati (Shailen Mukherjee, The Zoo) finally realizes that he is spending too much time with his "second wife", which is how he jokingly refers to his newspaper, and invites his cousin Amal (Soumitra Chatterjee, The World of Apu), an aspiring writer, to spend some time with his real wife, Charulata (Madhabi Mukherjee, The Big City). Soon after, Amal enters the house with a large suitcase, smiling and singing.

Amal immediately impresses Charulata. The way he talks, sings, and praises the beauty of life also inspires Charulata to refocus on her writing. Feeling energized and a lot more optimistic about life Charulata then surprises Amal with a beautiful gift. Meanwhile, not realizing how close Charulata and Amal have become, Bhupati begins discussing his cousin’s possible future marriage to the daughter of a wealthy entrepreneur.

This excellent film directed by the great Satyajit Ray tells two different stories. The first is that of a young woman who is trying to listen to her heart in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the beautiful cage she has been placed in, however, writing is the only thing that occasionally makes her feel alive.

The second and less obvious story is about a country looking for a new direction. As the film progresses, it becomes clear that there is tension in the air that could inspire dramatic events. Ray never delivers any political statements in the film, but it is easy to tell that like Charulata the country is quietly frustrated with the role that has been chosen for it.

The beauty of the film comes from its calmness and simplicity. Ray follows the conversations between the three protagonists without ever forcing the viewer to side with any of them. They exist and Ray and his camera are there to simply capture the moments they share. However, all of this, the observation and the acting, is done with a tremendous sense of effortless grace and elegance that makes viewing Charulata a very special experience.

As it is the case with virtually all of Ray’s films, music has a very important role in Charulata. But it never becomes the focus of attention - it either enhances emotions and feelings or simply eases the transition from one sequence to another.

Charulata, Ray's favorite film, is based on the popular novella Nastaneer (The Broken Nest) by the great Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore, who was the first Asian writer and poet to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913.

*Charulata was recently restored in 2K from the original film negative. The restoration was supervised by RDB Entertainments and carried out in Studios Pixion in Bombay, India. Earlier this year, the restored Charulata had its premiere in the Classics section of the Cannes Film Festival.

The Lonely Wife Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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 British distributors Artificial Eye.

This release uses a high-definition transfer which has been sourced from the same recent restoration of Charulata undertaken by RDB Entertainments and supervised by Kamal Bansal and Varsha Bansal which Criterion had access to when they prepared their Blu-ray release of the film for the U.S. market. Needless to say, the two releases have virtually identical characteristics.

Excluding some marginal discrepancies in the brightness levels, and they really are so small that they do not in any way affect the overall look of the film, I could not spot any important differences to address in this review. Clarity and depth are excellent. The beach footage again looks exceptional (compare screencaptures #5 from the two reviews), while the close-ups convey the same wonderful fluidity. The blacks, whites, and the variety of grays remain well balanced throughout the entire film. Furthermore, the same inherited sharpness fluctuations that I noticed on the Criterion release are also present here. (You can see what some of them look like if you click on screencapture #9). Image stability is also essentially the same. There are no traces of excessive degraining corrections. Problematic sharpening adjustments have not been applied either. Lastly, there are no serious compression anomalies to report in this review. All in all, I think that this is a very solid presentation of Charulata that is guaranteed to please its fans. (Note: This is a Region-B "locked" Blu-ray release. Therefore, you must have a native Region-B or Region-Free PS3 or SA in order to access its content).

The Lonely Wife Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

There is only one standard audio track on this Blu-ray release: Bengali LPCM 2.0. For the record, Artificial Eye have provided optional English subtitles for the main feature.

The lossless track effectively opens up the film in all the right places. During the dream sequence, in particular, where the music has an important role that sound is absolutely beautiful (the dream sequence beings at approximately 01.12.00). The dialog is also clean, stable, and easy to follow. For the record, there are no pops, problematic background hiss, audio dropouts, or distortions to report in this review. The English translation is excellent, but it isn't identical to the one used on the Criterion release.

The Lonely Wife Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Unfortunately, there are no supplemental features to be found on this Blu-ray release.

The Lonely Wife Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Artificial Eye's Blu-ray release of Satyajit Ray's beautiful film Charulata is an excellent alternative for people residing in Region-B territories. It does not have any supplemental features, but it uses a high-definition transfer that has been sourced from the same recent restoration of the film Criterion had access to. Consider adding Charulata to your collections, folks. It is one of director Ray's very best films. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.