**POSSIBLE SPOILERS**
Lacking the formidable cultural legacy of his earlier Apu trilogy, CHARULATA (Ray's 11th film) lacks nothing else if Ray's overall style was derived from neo-realism; CHARULATA proved that in his own uncluttered way he was also a master of style and subtle elegance.
CHARULATA was perhaps Ray's most technically stunning work, featuring an elegant - if moody - story shot in a manner that finds Ray experimenting a bit. The story is set in an upper-class, intellectual household in 1890s India, and the period setting is rendered in great detail giving the film a lush, living beauty that (thanks to the stunning cinematography of Subrata Mitra) never crosses over into stuffiness. In a handful of scenes, a French new wave influence can also be seen primarily at the very end, and also in an earlier scene featuring the title character's recollections (in a quick-moving montage) of childhood memories.
Based on a story by Rabindranath Tagore, the film explores marital complacency, as Bhupati (a wealthy publisher and political idealist, devotes the majority of his time to his publishing business, and to political interests, and grows increasingly isolated from his wife, Charulata. Charulata as an attractive upper-class wife, is essentially expected to manage the household, and not much else, and is increasingly both lonesome (Bhupati is a generally pleasant enough husband, though also a severe workaholic who is rarely around, and - in his sexual politics - he is a product of his time) and intellectually restless.
In the midst of this, Bhupati's younger brother Amal arrives Amal, a romantically inclined bohemian and recent college graduate who is searching for work while also pursuing literary ambitions, and has temporarily moved into the household. Amal and Charulata are instantly drawn to each other first as intellectual companions, before an awareness of attraction is recognized. The two are plainly aware of the impossibility of the unrequited relationship, as Bhupati after discovering than an employee has been embezzling form him is then devastated to discover that his wife is turning away from him.
To highlight the increasing distance between each of the three characters, CHARULATA is formalistic in it's look (with the handful of well-placed new-wave-inflected scenes adding textural complexity and emotionalism), with the classical touches of the cinematography underscoring the characters' ever-increasing distance from each other. Exploring sexual and class politics - with great depth and complexity - in a historical setting (while in its' exploration of idealistic, nationalistic politics making subtle connections to the present-day handling of the same issues in Bengali society), with flawless performances from all, CHARULATA is a beautiful and haunting masterpiece.
