Movies - Chokher Bali

Home > Listing Index > Movies > Chokher Bali

	Movies - Chokher Bali

Chokher Bali (meaning "Eye Sore") is a novel written by Rabindranath Tagore, Nobel Laureate and acclaimed Bengali author and poet. A Bengali or Bollywood film based on the novel was made by Rituparno Ghosh in 2003. The film starred Prasenjit as Mahendra, Aishwarya Rai as Binodini and Raima Sen as Ashalata. The title refers to a typical Bengali custom of calling friends by ridiculous (though not always without meaning) names. Ashalata and Binodini refer to each other as Chokher Bali. The other major characters are played by Lily Chakravarty (as Rajlakshmi, Mahendra's mother) and Tota Raychaudhuri (as Behari, Rajlakshmi's adopted son).

This has been one of the highly acclaimed works of the novelist Tagore, depicting deception, adultery and relationship exploitation. The story is set in Bengal of the early twentieth century, against the backdrop of the freedom struggle. Rituparno Ghosh has transformed the literary classic into an enjoyable contemporary movie. Tagore elaborately deals with the Bengali society, through his central character, the rebellious widow, who wants to live a life of her own. In writing this novel he exposes the evil custom of not letting widows remarry and condemning them to live a life of seclusion and lonliness. Tagore has said about the novel "I have always regretted the ending".

The film's background score by Debajyoti Mishra is suitable to the tone of the film, and contains no playback singing. Sreela Majumdar dubbed for Aishwarya Rai in this Bengali film and Sudipta Chakraborty dubbed for Raima Sen.

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. She returns to her village and lives there for a couple of months until she sees one of her relations passing by there on her way to somewhere else. Binodini hails the woman and the two soon agree that it would be best if Binodini came to live with the woman and her son, Mahendra (who, by the way, was one of the first to see Binodini's photo when she was unwed and up for grabs yet refused her on account of his being "unready for marriage"). Now, when the two arrive the woman's son and his new bride are in the throes of passion, constantly sneaking off to be alone together; this infatuation does not last long, however, when Mahendra begins to see that his wife's friend, Binodini, is more his type. The story details the lives of these three and Mahendra's best friend as they deal with certain issues as distrust, adultery, lies, and numerous fallings-out between them. The movie correctly depicts what Tagore so skillfully wrote and is a sad, stirring tale of the deceit and sorrow that come from being unsatisfied and unhappy.

Cast

Prasenjit -- Mahendra
Aishwarya Rai
-- Binodini
Raima Sen
-- Ashalata
Lily Chakravarty -- Rajlakshmi, Mahendra's mother
Tota Raychaudhuri -- as Behari

Other titles

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

Award Nomination

Choker Bali was nominated for the Golden Leopard award at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2003.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Chokher Bali ]

This page is based on the copyrighted Wikipedia article Chokher Bali; it is used under the GNU Free Documentation License. You may redistribute it, verbatim or modified, providing that you comply with the terms of the GFDL.

Searches on eBay