India, 1958
Directed by Satyajit Ray
With Chhabi Biswas (Huzur Biswambhar Roy), Gangapada Basu (Mahim Ganguly), Kali Sarkar (Roy’s servant), Tulsi Lahiri (Roy’s administrator)
The film starts with a long closeup on the puffy and tired face of an old man whose stare is vacant, even lifeless. He is Huzur Biswambhar Roy, a Bengali zamindar, that is an aristocrat owning huge tracts of lands, controlling the people living on his lands and collecting taxes for the government who is now bankrupt. He lives without any relative and having only two staff, his old and loyal butler and his now idle administrator in his sprawling palace, which used to be a lavish place but is now dilapidated. A long flashback sheds right away a light on his past, shedding light on his current sad situation.
It is prompted by sharp remarks Roy makes to his administrator as the man reads a letter from their bank rejecting a loan demand and asks again the zamindar to meet Mahim Ganguly, the local usurer’s son who tries to broaden the family business. Huzur Biswambhar Roy is a typical case of an heir who has squandered money while his environment has changed, with arable lands endangered by floods and new business practices settling in. Obsessed with prestige and blood he has ignored hard facts and instead nurtured his aristocratic passions: bringing up his son following traditions, riding horses, and above all practicing music and listening to it in the huge and elegant music room of his palace. The flashback’s central feature is indeed a concert taking place in this room, played by a great female singer, which showcases both Roy’s enthusiasm and his social position.
But this profligate love for music irks his wife. The carefree, tranquil, indolent atmosphere where Roy likes to feel shrouded in hides a fault line – but he tries hard not to be disturbed. What would rather peeves him and spurs him into action is the news that Mahim Ganguly is throwing a party. How such a low-ranking businessman can dare to plan the house-warming of his brand-new, modern house, on the Bengali New Year’s Day and brazenly invites the zamindar as if he was just any ordinary fellow?
So Roy hastily organizes his own party. This second concert in the music room involves an old man singing in a quivering and hypnotic voice in unison with a small but inspired band. Roy’s pleasure is, however, tepid: he is anxiously waiting for his beloved son, the only child he has, and his wife who had traveled to her father’s home. They are already late and the weather becomes stormy: Roy becomes nervous even as the singer’s performance gets more riveting. When he asks again his administrator if the son is home finally, the aide is speechless, shocked by the truth: the boat carrying the little family has capsized and the boy is dead. Roy would never recover from his grief. Neither would he be able to prevent his assets from dwindling: actually, this concert was another example of money wasted out of whim and prestige, and it could have been another social success if death had not hit him. And it is this grief that brings the narrative back to the first sequence’s time.
And this is when a hosting a third concert would be decided. The idea of a new concert surprises, given the decline of the zamindar’s fortunes. Walking with a cane in a small number of rooms in a palace obviously too big for his gloomy solitude, Roy can no longer display his culture and power as he used to. But annoyed by the success of his neighbor Ganguly, he decides to open again the music room and to invite the fabulous dancer Ganguly has just hired for his own pleasure. The concert is Roy’s way to assert his prestige again, the defiant pleasure of a stubborn grumpy old man. The beautiful dancer’s breathtaking performance is the fresh occasion for him to prove he is still a refined aristocrat who can humble a simple businessman. But his self-satisfaction turns him crazy enough to ride again his horse despite his bad health; Roy dies after the horse bucks before an obstacle.
This is not a musical film as Indian and American cinemas have churned out to please the masses. Yet music’s magic is fully conveyed by a camera intently focused on the artists who perform one after another in Roy’s music room, and it remarkably shapes the atmosphere of each sequences. From the satisfaction born out of a careless but confident take on life to the pervasive fear of the fate, to the final rivalry for etiquette, each performance subtly points at what is going on in Roy’s mind and life; it is even more impressive and eloquent than what many numbers can achieve in films through their colorful, contrived ways. This is, perhaps, because it is so linked to an underlying theme of nostalgia.
The film’s most poignant moment comes arguably when a confused Roy surveys the music room he has just reopened. Years of neglect have taken their toll and he stands astonished by the filth and the ruin. But he does not only see; he also hears music from the past, and joyous and elegant airs are played on the carpets the camera is capturing in a nicely roving motion. The glorious past is hailing again and the bygone pleasures are beckoning.
This nostalgia seems to extend to social interactions: Ganguly angrily recognizes that people throw stones at his car while they still hail Roy’s personal elephant and the isolated and impoverished zamindar can still summon friends to attend his last concert, as if nothing has changed from the past. Ganguly remains the man who owns his success to clever deals and greed while Roy remains the heir of a glorious past build on social principles and traditions. True, they could have been unfair and paternalistic, and the film is far from painting an entirely flattering portrait of the zamindar, emphasizing his arrogance and sense of entitlement. Moreover, the information it gives makes clear his kind is doomed, belonging to History, while Ganguly powerfully reflects vibrant modern times. Yet Roy manages to cut a tragic figure: his old age stubbornness feels like a fit of dignity and a rush for delight shaking off the complacency of the decline; the film is about recording a last, vain, but splendid and moving effort to feel alive even as everything is slipping away and times are changing.
“Jalsaghar – The Music Room” is shot in a striking, highly contrasted, and expressive black and white cinematography that illuminates the unfolding tragedy; it graciously exploits the settings, underlining the decline of the Roy estate and how lost in a changing world it is; and it shows a real flair for the detail and the image that can effectively convey the menacing presence of fate until it puts an end to Roy’s life. There is in particular a quite elaborate work on lights, natural and artificial, which brilliantly reflect the events’ gravity (the thunderbolts during the second concert) or just their atmosphere (the harsh light cast on the roof where the old Roy is lost in his thoughts) and throw Roy in ever tragic moods (and there is the striking symbol of a lit chandelier swinging against a dark background, which opens and ends the film). This is a great work of cinema, with a confident mise en scène working in unison with the solid, heartbreaking performance of actor Chhabi Biswas.