Cinema
Chandidas
চণ্ডীদাস
Debaki Bose · 1932
Synopsis
In the fifteenth century, in a village of Bengal, the Vaishnava poet Chandidas loves Rami, an out-caste washerwoman. Bijoynarayan, a high-caste and rapacious merchant, covets the young woman; rebuffed, he pushes the high priest to demand that the poet repent, on pain of punishment, for associating with a low-caste woman. Chandidas agrees to submit, until the day he discovers what the merchant's henchmen have done to Rami.
Context
The film is adapted from a musical play by Aparesh Chandra Mukherjee first staged in 1926, and the studio was then emerging from a series of failures. The music is by Rai Chand Boral, the photography by Nitin Bose, who made a Hindi version of it in 1934. It received its censorship certificate on 7 September 1932, for nearly twelve thousand feet. The surviving print runs about one hour fifty; it opens on a lotus in bloom, then on Rami singing a kirtan while washing a sari.
Who it is for
About two hours in Bengali, with early sound; it helps to know that the life of Chandidas is almost unknown.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the first Indian film to use background music for the narrative, and as the first great success of New Theatres.
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