Synopsis
Neeta (Supriya Chowdhury) is the breadwinner
in a refugee family of five. Her elder brother,
Shankar (Anil Chatterjee) aspires to be
a classical singer. Neeta postpones her
marriage to the scientist Sanat (Niranjan
Roy) to support the family and pay for her
younger brother's and sister's studies.
The father and younger brother both suffer
accidents forcing Neeta to remain the sole
breadwinner of the family in spite of her
worsening tuberculosis. Her mother encourages
Sanat to marry the younger sister Gita (Gita
Ghatak). Finally, Shankar having realized
his ambition , takes her to the hills for
treatment. There terminally ill, having
sacrificed her best years, Neeta cries out
into the silence of the mountains her desire
to live....
The film
Meghe
Dhaka Tara is perhaps Ritwik Ghatak's
greatest and most complete film, the first
in a trilogy examining the socio-economic
implications of partition, the other two
being Komal Ghandhar (1961) and Subarnarekha
(1965).
Complexities notwithstanding, Meghe
Dhaka Tara reaches out to the audience
with its directness, its simplicity, and
its unique stylistic use of melodrama. Melodrama
as a legitimate dramatic form has continued
to play a vital role in rural Indian theatre
and folk dramatic forms. Ghatak goes back
to these roots in his presentation of a
familiar struggle for survival, which has
lost its dramatic force and pathos through
repetition in real life. In Meghe Dhaka
Tara, day-to-day events transform into
high drama: Neeta's tormented romance is
intensified with the harsh sweep of the
whiplash on the soundtrack; Shankar's song
of faith in a moment of despair reaches
the height of emotional surrender with Neeta's
voice joining his and Neeta's urge to live
becomes a universal sound of affirmation
reverberating in Nature, amidst the distant
peaks of the Himalayas.
 For
the discerning critic, however, Meghe Dhaka
Tara provided unique intellectual stimulation.
To quote filmmaker and critic Kumar Shahani...
"The triangular division, taken from
Tantrik abstraction, is the key to the understanding
of this complex film. The inverted triangle
represents in the Indian tradition, fertility
and the femininity principle. The breaking
up of society is visualized as a three-way
division of womanhood. The three principal
women characters embody the traditional
aspects of feminine power. The heroine,
Neeta, has the preserving and nurturing
quality; her sister, Gita, is the sensual
woman; their mother represents the cruel
aspect. The incapacity of Nita to combine
and contain all these qualities... is the
source of her tragedy. This split is also
reflected in Indian society's inability
to combine responsibility with necessary
violence to build for itself a real future.
The middle-class is also seen in triangular
formation, at the unsteady apex of the inverted
form."
In
Meghe Dhaka Tara, Ghatak tries to
delve deep into our roots and traditions
and discover a universal dimension within
it. And for the first time, he says he experimented
with the techniques of overtones. In the
film, Ghatak succeeds in achieving a grand
totality through an intricate but harmonious
blending of each part with the whole in
the inner fabric of the film. Meghe Dhaka
Tara transcends into a great work of
art that enriches and transforms the visual
images into metamorphical significations...
The
music in the film perfectly intermingles
with the visuals, none dislodging the other
be it a remarkable orchestration of a hill
motif with a female moaning or a staccato
cough with a surging song.
Lastly, the film is greatly helped by an
absolutely stunning performance by Bengali
Filmstar Supriya
Choudhury as Neeta. Meghe Dhaka Tara
is one of the rare instances when she was
successfully able to break her star image
and cover new ground as a performer. In
the end as she cries out "I want to
live", one cannot helped but be totally
overcome by emotion. It is one of the greatest
and most unforgettable moments in the history
of Indian Cinema...
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