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The Music Room ( Jalsaghar ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - France ] | ![The Music Room ( Jalsaghar ) [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.2 Import - France ]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/413R7D10GNL._SL160_.jpg) | Category: DVD
Buy New: $29.95
as of 3/21/2010 01:00 CDT details
Seller: smile4smile08
Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 112700
Region: 2
ASIN: B000APEWE0
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
Simply another great classic by movies' finest June 12, 2007
Rizzo (Denver, CO)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
If you have not been introduced to the cinematic world of Satyajit Ray, this 1958 may not be your best film to start out. Instead, try his last movie 1991, Agantuk, (The Stranger) or begin with the world classic mid 50's Apu Trilogy. The Music Room features lengthy Indian music and singing that may be difficult to endure, but it is essential to listen, because it is the essence of the film, the love of music.
Jalsaghar (The Music Room) takes place in the 30's in a huge deteriorating palace as the soil slowly erodes too. The theme is a contrast between decadence and wealth. All he has now is two loyal servants, a few gold coins, a horse, and an elephant. As the movie opens, we are in the present time, when Biswambhar Roy, a feudal landlord is depressed, he has lost his wife and son and his love for the grand music room, where he entertained traditional concerts, drinking, and dancing.
Biswambhar Roy is annoyed by the lights going off from his neighbor's new generator. The neighbor is wealthy and he is modernizing, while Roy is not. Soon, we are taken into flashback where evidence shows he was already beginning to lose wealth, but he said he would spend his last on his love of music.
His wife and son have gone to visit family, and in preparation of another concert in the music room, upon return, he learns they are dead from a whirlpool accident. Now begins the death of the cherished music room.
Satyajit Ray is one of the world's greatest directors, he writes, produces, and directs. He is also a short story writer, and was a graphic artist. He is multi-talented and uses motifs, symbolism, themes, imagery, wide landscape shots. The mirrors, chandeliers, lights, and candles represent wealth and life. You will see an enormous views, especially one that depicts the size of the decaying palace. See how Ray sets the mood and slowly pans the dying, cold, deteriorating music room that was once had musical life. Ray's films offer great insight into human relationships, cultural life, hardships and triumph.
If you have seen Ray's films, you may be aware of the unique faces of his characters. He has said, he chooses people with interesting faces, and it is true with one of his bearded singers. He also doesn't focus on heavy dialogue as he once said that peak moments of a film should be wordless.
Enjoy this wonderful classic and don't see it while sleepy!! Satyajit Ray's movies are exceptional! As another great director, Kurosawa, said, " Not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon."
MzRizz.
The end of the line for a way of life December 9, 2005
Kieran F. Johnston (Shah Alam, Selangor Malaysia)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
A seamless masterpiece on every level: social commentary on class flux, character study, filmic execution, musical integration....you name it. But what really, really clinches this movie is the wonderful pathos that mounts higher and higher as Roy's coffers shrink lower and lower--and it becomes clear that this man and his values are doomed.
Roy reminds me of Fitzcarraldo--people with large capacities which are expressed through aesthetic obsessions--glorious obsessions which lead to glorious failure.
The music and the dance are divine--such incredibly precise sensuousness! And the strange thing about Satyajit Ray's films (I'm thinking of the Apu Trilogy as well) is that they appear to be effortless-as if life just fell into the camera lens like water into a funnel. And that's where the dividing line between film and miracle gets blurry.
Brilliant... October 28, 2005
Wyndwalkyr (Eugene, Oregon United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I would love the opportunity to buy this music on CD. It is unlike anything I've heard, and I am a long-time fan of Indian music. A musical journey through time. More, more, more!
A Beautiful film with some of the best music i've ever heard September 26, 2005
Jackie Holsmen (Bothell, Washington)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Satyajit Ray is a genius, I love his films and so far this is my favorite, it blends drama and music like salt in the ocean, This is a film that every film addict must inject into their viens.
Simply a masterpiece September 16, 2005
Aditya Vedula (Princeton, NJ United States)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is an amazing movie that explores the vanity and ruin of a once-prosperous feudal landlord (Biswambhar Roy) in Bengal around the turn of the century. Roy is a man who can not come to terms with a fast-changing world where his old feudal order is slowly disappearing and he is being upstaged by a vulgar money-lender (Ganguly) upstart whose family were once his beneficiaries and whom he considers beneath contempt for his lack of refinement. Even as he loses all else that he held dear, Roy remains a Zamindar to the end and decides on one last party in his Jalsaghar (music hall) that has remained closed for so long to teach the upstart a lesson.
The movie features excellent black-and-white cinematography, great acting and of course, the genius of Ray's direction.
To the lovers of music, this movie features a real treasure-trove of music with music direction by the late great Ustad Vilayat Khan, vocals by Akhtari Bai and a rare classic by the late Pakistani singer Salamat Ali Khan who was only 19 when he was recorded for this movie.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 14
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