Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Choker Bali

Chokher Bali (literally translated to "sand in the eye", figuratively to "constant irritant") (Bengali: চোখের বালি) is a Bengali film based on the novel Chokher Bali by Rabindranath Tagore. It was directed by Rituparno Ghosh in 2003 and stars Prasenjit as Mahendra, Aishwarya Rai as Binodini and Raima Sen as Ashalata. 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 Roy Chowdhury (as Behari, Rajlakshmi's adopted son). The film was later dubbed into Hindi and was released internationally under that language.

Chokher Bali (film) From Wikipedia
Some of the songs were still in Begali we presume since my wife could not understand the language of them. It does mention the language Bengali when the petition is stated in English under the time of British rule.

The strange thing for me was the character of Binodini which is played by Aishwarya Rai. She has played in numerous roles and is an overall good actor but in this part she hysterically laughs at times which seems inappropriate at best and tasteless in the social settings she was in. I am sure it was written like that but made her character look so narcissistic and petty which is not in the least her normal role. Other times she played the part of the contrite widow. Which the film also did not let us forget including bringing up the funeral pyre of widows and their second class status in society. Close to the end she gets some jewelry and tries to seduce the brother but he rejects her. I do not notice how the film rectified that she claimed she was penniless widow and then have the jewelry near the end of the movie.

For the above reasons I only gave this a rating of 2.5/5
But no one died as both me and my wife assumed would happen...
Choker Bali

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