The Coward (1965)
(Kapurush)
Country: IND
Technical: bw 70m
Director: Satyajit Ray
Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhavi Mukherjee, Haradhan Bannerjee
Synopsis:
A writer forced to stop over while his taxi is repaired is taken in by the owner of a tea plantation, only to find that his wife is the woman he lacked the courage to commit to, years previously, and has regretted ever since.
Review:
Ray's miniature masterpiece is perfect in every way: in the performances (Mukherjee all cool and disdain, Chatterjee the picture of misery, Bannerjee as irritatingly garrulous as Kellaway in The Postman Always Rings Twice); in the careful blocking and compositions, shifting focus between foreground and background (one, involving a slowly burning cigarette, worthy of Hitchcock); and in its cruel ironies, not least the neatly engineered coup de grâce at the end. The director eschews non-diegetic music in this excruciating chamber drama, preferring to let us feel the hero squirm in impotent silence.
(Kapurush)
Country: IND
Technical: bw 70m
Director: Satyajit Ray
Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhavi Mukherjee, Haradhan Bannerjee
Synopsis:
A writer forced to stop over while his taxi is repaired is taken in by the owner of a tea plantation, only to find that his wife is the woman he lacked the courage to commit to, years previously, and has regretted ever since.
Review:
Ray's miniature masterpiece is perfect in every way: in the performances (Mukherjee all cool and disdain, Chatterjee the picture of misery, Bannerjee as irritatingly garrulous as Kellaway in The Postman Always Rings Twice); in the careful blocking and compositions, shifting focus between foreground and background (one, involving a slowly burning cigarette, worthy of Hitchcock); and in its cruel ironies, not least the neatly engineered coup de grâce at the end. The director eschews non-diegetic music in this excruciating chamber drama, preferring to let us feel the hero squirm in impotent silence.
(Kapurush)
Country: IND
Technical: bw 70m
Director: Satyajit Ray
Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhavi Mukherjee, Haradhan Bannerjee
Synopsis:
A writer forced to stop over while his taxi is repaired is taken in by the owner of a tea plantation, only to find that his wife is the woman he lacked the courage to commit to, years previously, and has regretted ever since.
Review:
Ray's miniature masterpiece is perfect in every way: in the performances (Mukherjee all cool and disdain, Chatterjee the picture of misery, Bannerjee as irritatingly garrulous as Kellaway in The Postman Always Rings Twice); in the careful blocking and compositions, shifting focus between foreground and background (one, involving a slowly burning cigarette, worthy of Hitchcock); and in its cruel ironies, not least the neatly engineered coup de grâce at the end. The director eschews non-diegetic music in this excruciating chamber drama, preferring to let us feel the hero squirm in impotent silence.