Satyajit Ray

The first half an hour is sluggish, and probably because it looks like a black and white melodrama, it reminds me of some of the classics of the first blossom of Chinese cinema, that of the melodramas made in the 1930s to 1940s. But gradually the film picks up its pace and it begins to make sense especially from the point where the husband finds himself losing his job and no longer in the position to dictate his wife's future. The Big City is an incredible film in that it depicts with vivid and acute details in everyday life the shift of power of gender in the family. The performance by the young and gorgeous Madhabi Mukherjee is simply great with her magic transformation from a timid house-bound wife who relies on her husband for nearly everything to that of a woman who dare to stand up to her boss for a fellow saleswoman/competitor.

If Madhabi Mukherjee proves herself to be capable of a starring role on her own right, then The Lonely Wife seems to testify even further that with a good script and a good director, she can carry the film entirely on her own strength as an actress.

But the merit of The Lonely Wife is not just the supreme performance from that of a great actress in her creative peak, a good script and wonderful direction, it is a supreme work as a whole, whichever aspect one chooses to focus on: cinematography, the proms, etc. The scene in the garden, a rare one taken from outside the confine of a upper class house, is one of the most poignant. An apparently overgrown and neglected place, it is however a romantic and beautiful place that seems to be full of potentials, like the heroine who is sadly neglected by the husband and fits in the words corned by husband, 'idle rich'. Leading a self-contained life that awaits for something to happen or to be discovered, she is suddenly transformed into a lively woman that is capable of just anything.

I must have watched no less than three films from Satyajit Ray, but it is the three films grouped together in the first volume of his collected works that won me over. It proves that one shall never give up exploring old and new 'territories'.