Meghe Dhaka Tara
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| Meghe Dhaka Tara | |
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| Directed by | Ritwik Ghatak |
| Produced by | Chitrakalpa |
| Written by | Ritwik Ghatak (screenplay),Shaktipada Rajguru(the original novel) |
| Starring | Supriya Choudhury, Anil Chatterjee, Niranjan Ray, Gita Ghatak, Bijon Bhattacharya, Gita Dey, Dwiju Bhawal, Gyanesh Mukherjee, Ranen Ray Choudhury |
| Release date(s) | 1960 |
| Running time | 134 min. |
| Language | Bangla |
| IMDb profile | |
Meghe Dhaka Tara (Bengali: মেঘে ঢাকা তারা) (The Cloud-Capped Star) is a 1960 film by director Ritwik Ghatak. It stars Supriya Choudhury, Anil Chatterjee, Gita Ghatak, Bijan Bhattacharya, Niranjan Roy, and Gyanesh Mukherjee.
This film was directed by alternative filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak in Kolkata (then Calcutta). In contrast to many Bollywood films made in Mumbai, India's main film center, Ghatak's films are formally elaborate and somber, and often address issues related to the Partition of India. Although Partition is never explicitly mentioned in Meghe Dhaka Tara, it takes place in a refugee camp in the outskirts of Calcutta, and concerns an impoverished genteel Hindu bhadralok family and the problems they face because of Partition.
The film is perhaps the most widely viewed film among Ghatak's works; it was his greatest commercial success at home, and coincided with an international film movement towards personal stories and innovative techniques (the so-called 'new wave'). After Ghatak's death, his work (and this film in particular) began to attract a more sizable global audience, via film festivals and the subsequent release of DVDs both in India and in Europe.
In a confirmation of the popularity of Meghe Dhaka Tara, a recent survey by a leading Indian news group reported that the concluding line of the film, "Dada, ami baachte chai" ("Brother, I want to live") was the most well-known line of any film[citation needed].
Meghe Dhaka Tara is strongly melodramatic in tone, especially as concerns the sufferings heaped on the protagonist. As in many of his other films, Ghatak also uses surrealistic sound effects, such as sounds of a lashing as the heroine suffers yet another tragic twist of fate.
[edit] Plot outline
The film revolves around Nita (Supriya Choudhury), a beautiful young woman who lives with her family, refugees from East Pakistan, in the suburbs of Calcutta. Nita is a self-sacrificing person who is constantly exploited by everyone around her, even her own family, who take her goodness for granted. Her life is ridden with personal tragedy: she loses first her fiancé, then her job and finally her health by contracting tuberculosis. Her mostly absent would-be actor brother (Anil Chatterjee) is the only person who cares about her. In the end, she screams out her agony, throwing herself into her brother's arms.
[edit] Credits
- Story: Shaktipada Rajguru
- Screenplay: Ritwik Ghatak
- Cinematography: Dinen Gupta
- Editing: Ramesh Joshi
- Sound: Satyen Chatterjee
- Art Direction: Rabi Chatterjee
- Music: Jyotirindra Moitra
- Production: Chitrakalpa
[edit] External links
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