The Music Room
My first film from the Indian legend, Satyajit Ray, is this 1958 drama, and it was an enthralling experience to have such an unexpected initial viewing with a filmmaker’s work. I would not put it quite on the level of my first time with Andrei Tarkovsky or Akira Kurosawa, but I’m definitely prepared to watch more from him in the years to come. All three directors- and Ingmar Bergman, with whom my first experiences with was not as memorable- have a delicacy and humanity to their narratives that allow us to empathize with even the most self-centered actions their characters take. That’s an important quality for “The Music Room” to have.
We begin with Huzur Biswambhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas), an aristocrat in Bengal, on his roof, listening to a performance being put on nearby. He asks his servants where it is coming from, and whether he received an invitation. He received a written one, but not a formal, in-person invitation, although it is not certain whether he would have accepted either way. He decides he must put on a performance of his own, in his home, after a visit with a local banker who’s joined the ranks of the elite in the area. We start to see that Huzur’s home is not exactly kept to the standards we expect to see from people of wealth, and after the first performance he holds in the movie, a scene with his wife (Padmadevi) indicated that their wealth is going primarily so that Huzur can keep up the appearances of his position. Whether that stays true after a tragedy remains to be seen, however.
From the first scenes, Ray’s screenplay sets up the idea of a traditionally wealthy individual trying to compete with a newly wealthy one, and that plays out through much of the film’s 100 minutes, but as the story progresses, it’s clear that the film is more about how Huzur loses himself in maintaining his livelihood to the detriment of his relationships with his wife and son, and then, when those are taken away from him, how he loses his sense of self, except for his love of music. Ray’s film features performances by some of the most popular performers of the day in India, and those scenes are as exciting as any action scene in what they show us of Huzur, the life he lives, and the world he is trying to hold on to. We see how each performance, not just in terms of where it’s placed in the structure of the movie, but the song itself, plays into Huzur’s mindset at the time that makes the scene central to understanding his journey throughout the film. That Ray is able to do all of this while not really leaving the confines of a single home is remarkable storytelling.
The final moments of this film are unforgettable. Huzur has long lost his wife and son. He is near the end of his financial security, which has largely gone towards maintaining his self-perceived standing in the community, and the self-made Mahim Ganguly has just come to talk to him about the reality of his situation. He has decided to put on one, final concert in his beloved music room. All throughout the film, we have seen close-ups of the chandelier in the room and its candles. After this last performance, we see the light finally go out. And so, he knows his time has come. This was an unexpectedly poignant entry point for me into one of the great careers in world cinema, and I cannot wait to see where it takes me next.
