Charulata (1964)

Synopsis: This beautifully observed study of 19th-century domestic habits, also known as The Lonely Wife, won Satyajit Ray the best director prize at the Berlin film festival. Never has his debt to the great French film-maker Jean Renoir been more apparent than in this gently ironic tale from the pen of another key influence on Ray's style,

Rabindranath Tagore. Mocking both male authority and the gentility of Victorian society, it also boasts a superb performance by Madhabi Mukherjee as the neglected Calcuttan wife who sees an affair with her husband's cousin as a way of boosting both her self-esteem and her writing ambitions.

Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee, Madhabi Mukherjee, Shailen Mukherjee
Runtime: 117 min