just watch it!

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

What a wonderful little film this is. Using essentially just three actors and 70 minutes of film, director Satyajit Ray is masterfully precise in telling a haunting story. The premise is quite simple: a man's car breaks down and a wealthy stranger lets him stay in his remote house for the night. To the guest's great surprise, the stranger's wife turns out to be his former lover, unbeknownst to her husband. We find out through flashbacks that the two had actually been very close to marrying, but he wasn't ready, and let her slip away. The film reunites Soumitra Chatterjee and Madhabi Mukherjee, who had played in Ray's 'Charulata' the year before, which also featured a love triangle with a married woman. While that story was about temptation and forbidden love, this one is about the torture of regret, and on top of that, seeing the love one lost later in life, content with a new partner. Is it possible to get a second chance?Mukherjee turns in a great performance, and the flashbacks allow us to contrast her loving expressions from the past with the cool and measured looks she gives Chatterjee in the present. Neither time period is as simple as that, and she's especially good at portraying her conflicting emotions in the latter. Chatterjee may be a little dramatic in his expressions at times, but overall, it's in keeping with his character. Haradhan Bandopadhyay, who plays the husband, is quite good as he unwittingly tortures his guest, criticizing Bengalis while drinking too much early on, and then later commenting on how the remoteness of his bungalow made it a perfect spot for their honeymoon. Ray also allows him to make a point about India's caste system, as he says that while he was bothered by the system the British had employed for 150 years, he came to terms with it because if one was rich, it made things convenient. It was simply a matter of 'drowning the conscience' with alcohol. It's in moments like these that we really see the character of the individuals. Chatterjee's character is sensitive but indecisive, and Bandopadhyay's is friendly enough to give a stranded traveler a place to stay, but boorish and entitled. Perhaps we can also see that in the tiger pelts he has prominently displayed in his home. Then again, he did act to get what he wanted, and got the girl. We also have to ponder small moments in order to understand Mukherjee's emotions. As Chatterjee questions her and presses the issue, she often returns questions with questions, and it's hard to understand how she feels. She gives him sleeping pills it what seems like a minor gesture the night he stays with them, but there is so much meaning to it when she says "I don't think you will" in response to him asking what will happen if he takes more than two. She knows his timidity. This also comes out in his flashbacks. In one frustrated moment, she says "What's the use, Ami? What you really need isn't more time...but something else." Earlier in their relationship, she says "Where there's no courage, one resorts to excuses."The ending is brilliant and slightly ambiguous. For what it's worth, my interpretation is that by showing up for her sleeping pills, she not only makes her decision known, but also that despite outward appearances, she is sad in her marriage, and needs those pills to cope. She, too, is haunted - and yet the time is past, and there's no going back.Clean, concise, wonderfully understated, and yet, emotionally impactful.

A dull minor work by Satyajit Ray about a weak, rather pathetic man who is unexpectedly re-united with a former lover, now married. He wants her to leave her husband but cannot see what should be blindingly obvious, that she is not interested. This could be never be a great film, even with Ray directing, the story is just too weak and it is not helped by an unconvincing lead performance from the usually reliable Soumitra Chatterjee and dialogue that needlessly switches between Bengali and English, sometimes even in mid-sentence. Do people ACTUALLY talk like this? Maybe it's something pseudo-intellectuals do to show off but within five minutes it had already become distracting and very irritating.This one is for Satyajit Ray completists only.

Small, short, gripping film about a man who meets by accident the woman he loved but allowed circumstance to dissuade him from marrying. She now has a boorish older husband, and refuses to engage with him in the old way. The best moments are the shots of the woman's turned, scarfed head - she is unavailable now - "it will not be revealed" - and her headscarf becomes an eloquent example of all the veils the coward has to face, one he has not had the gumption to walk into love's temple. The performances are excellent, with frequent close-ups delineating the suffering of the protagonist and, in the flashbacks, the woman. The revelation of the husband's acquiescence to social conservatism, the caste system and subsistence on alcohol as a way of getting through life is slyly shocking. Many meanings of the word coward are explored, and each of the three characters might be said to show some cowardice. The feel is pretty gritty and realistic, and reminiscent of a 1960s BBC Wednesday Play.

Satyajit Ray's 'Kapurush' is a film that is set one night till the next. A writer Amitabha Roy (Soumitra Chatterjee) is waiting for his train but that's a very long wait. He meets a gentleman, Bimal Gupta (Haradhan Bannerjee), who offers him an invitation to spend the night at his place instead of waiting in the station all night. After arrival at Gupta's residence, Roy is surprised to see Mrs. Gupta. She happens to be his ex-lover.Ray tells the story in a very concise way. It is very much a character centred piece. Chatterjee gives a brilliantly underplayed performance as the younger lover and the desperate man hoping to win back his one time girlfriend. Madhabi Mukherjee does very well as she keeps her emotions balanced and Haradhan Bannerjee is good too.I was surprised to see that it was such a short feature film. The plot is quite simple, as it proceeds with Roy remembering the old days with Karuna, his rejection of her and now he wants her back. He's desperate to believe that Karuna is unhappy and that she will come back to him. The ending is beautifully shot and it makes one wonder whether she actually came to the station. A great movie for a rainy day.