Criterion Collection: The Music Room [Blu-ray] | DVD Review

Satyajit Ray’s The Music Room, subject of a brilliant new Criterion release, is a somber, hypnotic film that deals with the wretched symbiosis of pride and regret. All about the slow decline of a former unimaginably rich landowner named Biswambher Roy (Chabbi Biswas), the film adopts elements of classic tragedy and transposes them to the barren deltas of Bengal. While the landscape presents surreal vistas of seemingly endless horizons, The Music Room is a study of self-inflicted entrapment and the hard, heavy burdens imposed by illustrious family history. Through Roy’s arrogant and naïve sense of entitlement, he lives his life in a perpetual folly, never recognizing the shifting realities beyond his own darkening, decaying walls. And just as rising rivers have rendered the bulk of his vast holdings worthless, a flood of changing ideas and the enlightened, democratic thinking of a new age threaten to wash away the shabby remnants of his faltering empire.

In tone and theme, The Music Room is reminiscent of the later reels of Citizen Kane, where Charles finds himself reduced to a sad, empty husk amid his ruinously overbuilt Florida pleasure palace. But the emotional issues that plague Charles Foster Kane are mere child’s play compared to the karmic ravages faced by the aging Biswambher Roy, for as we learn through extended flashback, Roy’s hubris has extracted a devastating price, well beyond measure in silver rupees.

The Music Room also shares visual similarities with the Welles masterpiece, as Ray and cinematographer Subrata Mitra create exquisitely composed frames characterized by enormous, and at times seemingly infinite, depth. Filmed almost entirely within the Roy family’s crumbling, neo-classical estate, the colossal mansion becomes a mute but indispensable character; its long hallways and massive porticos forming deep backdrops that appear to recede not only in space, but to the dawn of time. The castle’s bare windows offer stark prospects on the treeless riparian plains; the distant, dusty gallop of a lone horseman providing a counterpoint to Roy’s dour inertia. A new, alien ethos is loose in his ancient world of pampered privilege: social standing based not on esteemed ancestry but individual merit. And as Roy watches the bags of gemstones that have defined and shaped his world view slowly dwindle, his egotistical stubbornness will not allow him to submit to the heresy of an ascendant middle class.

Roy’s sole monument to his youthful excess is the palace’s music room, a grandiose atrium decorated with priceless art work and ornate finery. Once the site of weekly concerts, Roy would magnanimously invite a cross section of the local populace to enjoy performances by India’s elite musicians, and pay tribute to their host’s splendid beneficence. As his guests reveled in the music and lounged on sumptuous silk pillows, Roy sat in smug self-congratulation. He clearly deserved his inherited riches because he was such a kind and generous person, and the world was very lucky to have him.

As Roy’s parties become more elaborate and expensive, his blissful dream world is rocked by the arrival of a new neighbor: a cheerfully obnoxious bourgeoisie banker named Mahim (Gangapada Basu), the product of a local family Roy has long considered socially inferior. Schooled in modern business practices, Mahim has returned to Bengal to exploit the region’s riches in the name of international commerce, bringing the noise and obtrusiveness of the modern world with him. His loudly sputtering electric generator makes Roy’s musical reveries all but impossible, and the estate’s meditative atmosphere is frequently ruined by screeching horn blasts from Mahim’s spanking new tin-lizzie.

Satyajit Ray’s slow and careful construction of the social tension between the two men is masterfully delicate, and a joy to watch. Mahim’s behavior at the sedate Roy soirees is like a squirming, distracted choirboy, straining to maintain a veneer of reverence. Ray exploits the mesmerizing quality of traditional Indian music, and draws visual parallels with a large, swaying chandelier, reinforcing themes of hypnotic denial. The camera becomes mobile during these musical sequences, creating the flowing sense of ancestral spirits among the Earthly audience. When a life-altering tragedy strikes during a performance, Ray communicates the horror through a simple bit of foreshadowing; an image of a grasshopper struggling in a glass of wine, and we immediately share our protagonist’s shock and devastation. As a result of this incident, the music room is closed and sealed, its reverberant walls abandoned to the silence of the dead.

Four years later, with word of the depleted Roy fortune on the lips of every neighborhood gossip, Mahim decides to build his own music room and revive Roy’s musical traditions. But Roy, now grown old and paunchy and mired in a depressed torpor, sees Mahim’s gesture as more insult than accolade, and decides to unlock his musical chamber for one last grandiose shindig, a gala affair that will wipe out the diminished ancestral vault once and for all. And while the last of the loyal family retainers (Kali Sarkar) looks on, happy to see his beloved boss fully embracing life again, there is the tacit understanding that this celebration will in truth be a going away party; a bon voyage to a journey from which there is no return.

For reasons unknown to this reviewer, B/W films made in Europe and Asia during this period have a sharp, yet gauzy look to them, almost like infra-red spectral shifting. Compare the look of monochrome Hollywood cinematography in this era to say, The 400 Blows or Hard Days Night – just to cite some famous examples – and you’ll see what I mean. Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show from 1971 (ironically shot by Hollywood veteran Robert Surtees) and 1980’s Raging Bull are examples of American films that approximate this look, characterized by subtly flaring highlights and an overall murky patina that still retains sharpness and detail. To describe the look summarily as “High Contrast” – as a number of lazy film scholars do – is to understate the artistry and uniqueness of the aesthetic.

Fortunately, the transfer recognizes the way a film of this period and pedigree should look, and carefully preserves The Music Room’s brittle etherealness. The castle interiors are rendered in rich elegant tonalities that make gray seem like an exciting new color. Exteriors are awash with the gossamer shimmer of ancient dreams, achieving a bright, dynamic starkness. Combined with Ray’s meticulously balanced compositions, Criterion’s 1.33:1 transfer has created a disc brimming with precise, brooding beauty.

The mono track is clean and strong, and delivers the complex instrumentation of the musical performances with a wealth of sonic detail. Exposure to the straightforward monaural stripes of older films certainly makes one realize how gimmicky – and downright distracting – today’s surround processes can be when sloppily executed.

Satyajit Ray (1983) a feature documentary by Shyam Benegal that chronicles Ray’s career through interviews with the filmmaker, family photographs, and extensive clips from his films.
This rather monumental supplement – 131 minutes – is a thorough analysis of the Ray filmography complete with the director’s thoughts on a range of subjects. We see Ray at work on the set, where he reveals himself to be fanatically obsessed with visual details. His formative years are discussed, including his early desires to be a musician and illustrator. An obsession with movie stars and Hollywood gossip magazines sparked an interest in directing, and Ray was particularly fascinated by the work of John Ford and Frank Capra. Interviewer Shyam Benegal steers the conversation to in-depth technical discussions of the filmmaking process, and illustrates Ray’s commentary with selected scenes from his films. Ray ultimately saw his creations as reflections of their times, and felt that even period pieces should have contemporary resonance. Fittingly, Ray considered himself a classicist, with little concern for filmmaking fads and fashions. In his words: “Just making a film is so much work, you don’t have time to worry about style.” Despite some rough spots, this documentary is a fitting tribute to Ray and his impressive body of work, and is mandatory viewing for fans of the director.

New interviews with Satyajit Ray biographer Andrew Robinson and filmmaker Mira Nair
These segments are presented as separate, stand alone pieces. Robinson’s essay, entitled For the Love of Music, covers the genesis of The Music Room and finds Ray’s choice of material firmly rooted in his need to recover from recent box office bombs. This film was Ray’s first to deal with Indian nobility, and was designed to appeal to a broad segment of India’s theater goers. Robinson discusses the way music was used historically as a status symbol by the upper classes, and the how the unpredictability of Bengali weather played havoc on the production. At 16 minutes, this supplement is highly informative and sheds much light on The Music Room’s place in Satyajit Ray’s progression as a filmmaker.

Mira Nair, director of Salaam Bombay and Mississippi Masala, offers articulate commentary on The Music Room and examples of her written correspondence with Ray. His films were difficult to find outside of Calcutta, and Nair didn’t see her first Ray films until she left her native India to attend college in Boston. Clearly Ray provided much of the inspiration when she elected to pursue a career in filmmaking, and he was very gracious and helpful to Nair when she was starting out. Nair analyses several scenes from The Music Room, and her insights have a refreshing clarity and conciseness. This 15 minute supplement is highly recommended.

Excerpt from a 1981 French roundtable discussion with Ray, film critic Michel Ciment, and director Claude Sautet
The Music Room is discussed along several other Ray films in this entertaining French television production. Sautet and Ciment approach Ray with an amusing sort of fanboy worship, and lead him into a detailed discussion of the film’s soundtrack. Ray reveals that prior to filming the The Music Room, he was much more familiar with Beethoven than the type of Indian classical music used in the film. Overall, it’s a watchable and fairly interesting 10 minutes.

A booklet featuring an essay by critic Philip Kemp, a 1963 essay by Ray on the film’s location, and a 1986 interview with the director about the film’s music
More of a tome than a booklet, this bonus item weighs in at 36 pages and features the usual high quality design and printing for which Criterion is known. Philip Kemp’s essay, Distant Music leads off the booklet, and discusses Ray’s early international recognition and the buzz he created at Cannes in 1956, along the critical backlash that first greeted The Music Room, including a cranky dismissal from famous NY Times critic – and world class snob – Bosley Crowther. Next is Winding Route to a Music Room, a memoir written by Ray, all about the difficulties in finding a suitable location for the film, and the happy accident that allowed him to eventually discover Nimita, an obscure palace assessable only by ferry. Rounding out the booklet is an interview with Ray which focuses on the film’s musical selections and Ray’s relationship with composer Vilayat Khan. Along with the articles, there’s a plethora of film stills, cast and crew credits and notes on the production of the disc.

The Music Room draws into sharp relief the contrast between the India of ancient ritual, and the wholly new nation that emerged as a result of western influence and the changing attitudes of the 20th Century. Satyajit Ray’s beautiful and sensitive film captures an era of cultural overlap with masterful visual storytelling and exquisite imagery. Biswambher Roy may have slowly squandered the fortune it took his family generations to acquire, but that’s only a secondary tragedy. Ultimately, The Music Room is the story of a vain and foolish man who has lost his most valuable possessions, and no amount of money or property can ever bring them back.

Reviewed by David Anderson

Movie rating – 4

Disc Rating – 3.5