JALSAGHAR Movie Review

The Music Room

Biswambhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas) is a still-arrogant member of the declining aristocracy of Bengal in the 1920s. The proud patriarch of a once-wealthy family, Roy has spent the family fortune on self-indulgent, ruinously expensive concerts at his home; these expenses have fed his ego and sense of cultural refinement, but have also, through a terrible twist of fate, cost the lives of his wife and son. Roy's pride is such, however, that nothing can make him understand the mad consequences of his obsession with his own superiority. Nearly impoverished, sitting in his decaying mansion's music room, Roy spends his final days trying to show that he has more refined musical tastes than, and is culturally superior to, his wealthy, nouveau riche neighbor—he'll spend his last coins and his last breath to prove it. It's one thing to simply say “pride goes before a fall”; this is what it means. Satyajit Ray's The Music Room (Jalsaghar) springs to life fully formed as a great, cautionary fable illustrating the logical consequences of utterly unbridled pride. It's a chilling, brilliantly simple, darkly funny vision, and a masterpiece.

NEXT STOP … Pather Panchali, Aparajito, The World of Apu

1958 100m/B IN Chhabi Biswas, Padma Devi, Tulsi Lahnin, Pinaki Sen Gupta, Kali Sarkar; D: Satyajit Ray; W: Satyajit Ray; C: Subrata Mitra; M: Satyajit Ray. VHS COL