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Ghare Baire (The Home and the World), 1984 |
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Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee (Sandip), Victor Banerjee (Nikhilesh), Swatilekha Chatterjee (Bimala), Gopa Aich (Nikhilesh's sister-in-law), Jennifer Kapoor (Miss Gilby, English governess), Manoj Mitra (Headmaster), Indrapramit Roy (Amulya), Bimal Chatterjee (Kulada). |
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Bimala waits on as her husband sits down to dinner |
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| The Story |
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| The action occurs in 1905, in the period in which Great Britain, represented by Lord Curzon, decided the partition of Bengal in order to separate the Hindus and Muslims. The populace mobilized against this project in the nationalist movement known as swadeshi , which called for a boycott of foreign-made goods, and in an insurrection which was subsequently suppressed. In this turbulent context, a rich couple, Nikhil and Bimala, who have remained faithful to the ideals of the Bengal Renaissance, receive in their home a friend, Sandip, a vehement anti-English nationalist. Encouraged by her husband to be a "modern" woman, Bimala is seduced by Sandip, before gradually recognizing the duplicity of his motives and behavior. |
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Nikhilesh having a conference on the impending riot between Hindus and Muslims |
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In this film, as well as in Devi (The Goddess, 1960) and Charulata (The Lonely Wife, 1964), Ray explores the cultural emergence of the idea of the "modern woman" in the upper class of colonial India, showing with striking sensitivity the pressures this new ideal placed on individual women whose self-identities were also moulded by traditional expectations. |
| Contributed by DKB and AKD |
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