The Cloud Capped Star The Criterion Collection

Description

Directed by the visionary Bengali filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak, The Cloud-Capped Star tells the story of a family that has been uprooted by the Partition of India and come to depend on its eldest daughter, the self-sacrificing Neeta (Supriya Choudhury). She watches helplessly as her own hopes and desires are pushed aside time and again by those of her siblings and parents, until all her chances for happiness evaporate, leaving her crushed and ailing. Experimenting with off-balance compositions, discontinuous editing, and a densely layered soundtrack, Ghatak devised an intellectually ambitious and emotionally devastating new shape for the melodrama, lamenting the tragedies of Indian history and the inequities of traditional gender roles while blazing a formal trail for the generations of Indian filmmakers who have followed him. DVD SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES • New 2K digital restoration • New conversation between filmmakers Saeed Akhtar Mirza and Kumar Shahani • Stills gallery of Ghatak family photographs curated by writer and photographer Nabarupa Bhattacharjee • New English subtitle translation • PLUS: An essay by film scholar Ira Bhaskar