Tagore Film Festival - Char Adhyay: Four Chapters (Mon 7 May)

Char Adhyay (1997) English Title: Four Chapters Romance 110 minutes

Director: Kumar Shahani

Writer: Kumar Shahani

Stars: Sumanto Chattopadhyay, Nandini Ghosal and Kauskhik Gopal

Adapted from a novella by Rabindranath Tagore, Char Adhyay captures the ideals of the Bengali Renaissance of the 1930s. A group of young intellectuals and revolutionaries, led by the brilliant young Indranath, is fighting for independence from the colonial system.

Ela, a beautiful spirited young man is a member of a group of armed revolutionaries during the freedom struggle. She is at once the mascot and the spirit of the movement. Within the group she meets Atin and falls in love. The unyielding nature of the movement decrees that they cannot be together. As Ela and Atin start questioning the indoctrination and the ideology of the movement, they come into conflict with the leaders of the group. The film is the story of this conflict between beuty, love and humanism and the harsh ideology and the indoctrination of the revolutionary struggle.