The Music Room

Good heavens! This is about as far from Bollywood movies (cheesy musicals) as one could get. Jalsaghar is a poignant rendering of social transition at the personal level -- the indigent aristocrat whose delusive and self-destructive obsession with bringing his music room back to life shields him from the reality of his family's economic and social collapse, and indeed hastens it; the showy nouveau-riche neighbor who embodies the rise of a new social order based on economic achievement rather than aristocratic roots and inherited wealth. There are parallels to Chekhov and Faulkner (Snopeses and Sartorises). The black and white images (the white horse!) are stunning. I saw this film in the 1980s, and remember it more clearly than the movie I saw last night. It is truly a classic.