Chokher Bali (2003)

User Rating:

6.7/10   

Director:

Rituparno Ghosh

Writers:

Rituparno Ghosh (screenplay)
Rabindranath Tagore (novel)

Release Date:

23 August 2006 (France)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

The book, Binodini, is the story of a young woman, who is left to her own devices when her sickly husband dies soon after they are married...

Plot Keywords:

Doctor | Beautiful Woman | Based On Novel

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Aishwarya Rai	...	Binodini
Prasenjit Chatterjee	...	Mahendra
Raima Sen	...	Ashalata
Lily Chakravarty	...	Rajlakshmi, Mahendra's mother (as Lilly Chakraborty)
Tota Roy Chowdhury	...	Behari
Sonali Chakrabarti
Sudeshna Roy
Mousumi Saha
Suchita Ray Chaudhury
Zarin Chowdhury
Abhishek Bose
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Bharati Devi	...	Dying woman at varanasi

Also Known As:

Choker Bali: A Passion Play (International: English title)
Sand in the Eye (India: English title)

Runtime:

167 min | Switzerland:120 min (Locarno Film Festival) | Germany:145 min (Bollywood Festival Stuttgart) | Germany:120 min (DVD)

Country:

India

Language:

Bengali

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Australia:PG | UK:PG

Filming Locations:

Calcutta, West Bengal, India

Company:

Shree Venkatesh Films

Trivia:

Aishwarya Rai wore dark brown contact lenses for her role.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Binodini comes to Kolkata before the Ambubachi festival, which falls in the month of June. But while talking to Behari in the picnic scene she says that she has been here since Shravana (mid July to mid August).

Movie Connections:

Version of Chokher Bali (1938)

A critique of the film in the context of the original novel

The strength of this Tagore novel was the simultaneous portrayal of the baser human instincts and its destructive effects and the nobler human emotions and its uplifting purifying effects in its central protagonist- Binodini. Binodini's deliberate enticement of Mahendra was a result of hurt ego that Mahendra would choose the far inferior Ashalata to lavish his affections, greed for all she could have possessed had he married her, and is provoked her to break their marriage.Bihari, however, inspired her abiding love and respect and this gave her strength to resist Mahendra's lust and also Bihari's marriage proposal as this would have led to the latter's defamation and social ostracisation. Unfortunately Rituporno's film was unable to portray this duality of emotions I don't blame the viewers who are unfamiliar with the novel for thinking that this is about a widows sexual lust. Shame on Rituporno for so defaming that great writer 'TAGORE.'