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About the Film:
Chaturanga is the story of a love that
is caught between conflicting worlds of ideas. The lead
protagonist Sachish fleets from radical positivism to
religious mysticism in his quest for life's meaning.
However, his search ultimately yields nothing but crushing
disillusionment. This is because he cannot square his
abstract ideals with the powerful presences of two women
in his life. One of them is Damini, a young Hindu widow,
and the other is Nanibala, the abandoned mistress of
Sachish's own brother. Sachish tries to convince himself
that Nanibala is simply a helpless woman who needs to be
'rescued' by him. Similarly, during his later religious
phase, he pretends that the widow Damini is merely an
enticement of Nature that must be avoided at all costs for
spiritual salvation. Chaturanga thus becomes, after a
point, a psychodrama of unbelievable cruelty. Nanibala
becomes a victim of it because as a 'fallen woman' she can
only be 'saved', but her humanity cannot be recognized.
Damini is first given away by her dying husband, along
with all her property, to a religious guru. She then falls
in love with Sachish who can accept her only without her
sexuality. Set in Colonial Bengal in the turn of the
twentieth century, the film weaves a rich tapestry of
crisscrossing desires and moralities.
Based on the novel by the Nobel Prize
winning author Rabindranath Tagore, Chaturanga is directed
by Suman Mukhopadhyay, one of the most exciting and
promising young filmmakers working in India at present.
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