 Would you like to say something in Bengali? Something new? An amijalina? Amitomakibalobashi and Rani Ramadachuk. Hey, welcome back to our stupid reaction to you and it's I'm Corbin. I'm Rick and you're close to Instagram and Twitter. I'm called JuicyConsent. It's so juicy. Is that your tag is sticking out? Well, then tell me and don't touch me. I'm not touching you, I was touching the tag. Ugh, COVID now. Grief. Today we are continuing Classic Month. Classic Month. It's time to have another Classic Month. And this is a Bengali film from 1960. And thank you to the person who sent us this DVD. Yes, long ago. Long, long ago. When I've been able to watch it. And thank you for the forward-thinking people who included English subtitles in the creation of the DVD. Yes, that helps. In fact, it was a Blu-ray which was kind of crazy for 1960. Great quality. Yeah, so I don't know what they did, but they did a phenomenal job in terms of getting that quality back. But it's called the Cloud Caped Star or there's a Bengali name which I don't have here. Do you know it? There's... That's the truth. But yeah, it's the 1960 Cloud Caped Star which I think after watching this fantastic name for which is actually capped. Oh, sorry. Capped. A selfless young woman sacrifices her own happiness for her unappreciative family. Yep, that's it. That kind of gives it away though. No, no. Okay, a little bit. But directed by, say his name? Rithic. Isn't it Rithic? No, it may be Rithic but Andrani was calling him Rithic. Rithic. Yeah, like Rithic Roshan. It sounded like Rithic over the phone. It looks like Rithic. Which I've seen before. And then the last name pronunciation is we won't get it because we don't have this pronunciation what we say, but it's something close to katak. Katak. And starring, just say the main one even though it's... Supriya Chadi and Arochadriji. And Yanish Mukherji. So yeah, obviously came out in 1960 so this is going to be our spoiler review. Yeah. If you haven't seen it, I guess you're just like us. If you don't want to be spoiled, go watch it come back. You could probably find Dandy somewhere. I would hope you can. Rick, your initial thoughts please. I will be busting out my handy dandy glasses for Andrani and all the Bengalis who know about the importance of the glasses being the intellectualized. Oh really? He's wearing glasses, all the intellectuals do. But here's my paragraph. Cloud Cap Star is a breathtaking, heart-breaking, beautifully rendered cinematic master class taking us on a visual and auditory journey deep into the psyche of a director whose technical mastery is only surpassed by his poetic pessimism. As he creates a work of art that somehow seems to not only achieve the impossible by making theatrical tropes and melodrama best suited for the stage conveys stark reality on screen while simultaneously making an entire family become a cinematic embodiment of the mind, body, heart and soul of partitioned, torn, Bengal. If Charlie Chaplin was a civil rights advocate using cinema in the hopes of creating societal change, Kotak was simply a dark poet using cinema to show you the beauty of a flower as it slowly dies and you know there's nothing you can do to stop its demise. Absolutely. And so you liked it? Yeah. A lot. Yeah. This is one of the, whenever I mentioned Classic Month, and I knew this one was high up there in terms of just, this is one of the classics in terms of just Indian cinema. Not just Bengali cinema. And so I knew we were going to get to this one and somebody kindly sent it to us. I did really enjoy this movie. It's really heartbreaking for this girl. And Johnny said, she said I bet Corbin's going to really like this because of the way that it takes everything in a very real, heartbreaking way to wrap anything up in a bow. Yeah, there's certain things that I didn't like in terms of actors mostly. I bet we're going to have a similar kind of a dev dose conversation here. Yeah. But for the most part, especially with the writing especially at the beginning it definitely got better as it went along because I think it got more real. It started off a little, like the actor. I know it's the time. Exactly. It's the time. But at that same time they didn't end that way. The way they began. True, but let's just as a point of reference for that. So it's like, for example, a streetcar named Desiree was nine-year preceding this, right? In American cinema. Yeah. But this film, and I'm learning this, the more we watch Indian film and the more we're watching regional film, I'm recognizing that when we go into the older films, we said this with the last film that we watched was was Massoon. Massoon. How once you get back to a certain range, you cannot and shouldn't compare what's going on in Indian cinema with because they're evolving within themselves. Yeah, but it wasn't everybody. No, and here's the thing. So much of what was going even the makeup. So if you were today to measure the makeup in this film, you go, it was terrible. But if you recognize that the makeup was done like theater actors and it was just captured on film and it looked terrible on film, but for theater it's absolutely applicable. Same thing with the stylization of what's going on and reading this acting book that Pankaj had asked us to read. I've recognized that especially in older Indian cinema and Bengali cinema in particular there are certain tropes that are staged that American cinema was done with but was still being celebrated because it was part of the heritage of the time and you can't measure it based on what was going on in American cinema at the time you have to measure it based on what was going on in Indian cinema. And I believe it was a celebration of that at the outset, which is why I wrote in my paragraph it's extremely rare and I know it's something that's kind of the dev-doss thing, where you're taking a stylization of something to convey a reality and I know for you it doesn't work for you it doesn't work for you. It works for me. It never works. But it wasn't the whole time, it was mostly the father who I did not enjoy for the most part the entire time and then the mother at points as well. But almost every other person the brother sometimes got there but I think he definitely improved tremendously. If you're measuring it by realism throughout the film I thought she did a phenomenal job of the main girl. But the main thing of this is the story of this that I think I'm hoping punch a lot of people in India in the face especially at that time and I hope it punched the British in the face. But at the time of what was going on with the partition and this was the partition of Bengal and then also the partition of India as well. The west side. But the whole story of even if you take that out of it, the story of somebody who just gives, gives, gives and just everyone takes from you and you don't take any time for yourself or you don't take anything for yourself because that's a human story. There's many humans that just have that's their natural instinct is to just give, give, give and they're always their last mothers often fall into that is that they often just give of themselves over and over and they don't get anything in return and they don't take time to take care of themselves. Just that story alone would have been good enough. Obviously there's a lot more layers on to this film than just that but I thought it was a brilliant story especially for 1960. Yeah, the feminism of her being the primary breadwinner and being a strong woman was way ahead of the time back then and for me the symbolism and I've done a little bit of reading up on it not a lot at all but the very fact that it's called the cloud cap star it's interesting because he's both a pessimistic creator very dark but I wonder he definitely doesn't have a thread through him. A huge difference between directing styles. So Satyajit Rai would be our other comparison, Bengali, right? And he is definitively shaped by western cinema and my understanding is that he is not. He is far more eastern in terms of his they're both definitively eastern artists but as far as the framework with which he creates his cinema and this metaphor of the cloud cap starts really interesting. I felt that the title itself as well as this family were a metaphor for Bengal in that the cloud being the circumstances beyond the control that has put a damper on the shine that was formerly this beautiful wonderful place but what's interesting about that perspective is that it's a transient perspective rooted in just the here and now because stars are beyond the clouds and a cloud's going to pass but he doesn't give you the sense the cloud's going to pass. He gives you the sense that we've been screwed and we're going to stay screwed and we're all going to die and the sense of the brokenness yet I felt like the family itself almost represented different aspects of Bengal like she would represent the heart and the father would represent the mind and the brother would represent the artistry and the mom would represent the emotions of the anger and I don't know if he intended it that way but I know that partition is a huge framer for his creativity and I apart from that I don't know that I've ever seen more beautifully created darkness his use of light and framing of shots and there's one moment where she's talking about how much she loves the sunset but he shot it I mean she's talking about the sunrise and he framed it with the sunset behind her so even in the midst of her optimism he's still painting the stark contrast of you may be believing in a sunrise but what you're not really looking at is the fact that this is sunset and he's just auditory at the visuals and the sound. Did you notice the moment the guy is singing the Bengali folk song outside? All the music is gorgeous and then he's on this haunting song and all of the singers are gorgeous but then he does something that in today's standards is just not a big deal but back then you hear the song and then he goes from the exterior shot to the interior shot and that's this really pretty shot of the husband the father and the mother and he's taken the audio down and he's carried the audio from the exterior to the interior and he just slowly started to fade it and I thought that's rare it's not a hard cut it's an actual fade out but he didn't fade it out he left it in the second frame as ambient noise and that doesn't happen a lot in black and white films. Yeah absolutely and I don't know if it was in a testament just to how it was shot or the restoration they did with the blue ray because somebody restored this it says this yeah it looks gorgeous what does that work the criterion I don't know if they ever restored it but it was absolutely gorgeous and the quality was flawless first something that came out in 1960 there's this one shot where it's the dad and the mom and the brother and the sisters it's inside but the brother's outside and it's dark above the heads and everybody is perfectly spaced just he doesn't have the optimism of a Sanjay Leela Bansali at all but the technical beauty I found myself often pausing it and going look at that shot there's a bunch of gorgeous shots and another on the writing I think obviously the family was very well written because you could hate every single one of those people at very different times for different reasons and I feel like the brother had a beautiful arc because at the beginning you're like bro get a job you moocher even though I still kind of feel that way I feel like you can have a job and also pursue what you need to do so you don't strain your family especially the sister with the degree but obviously you feel for him because obviously she believes in him she was like no I want you to do this because you're what I'm clinging my hope to you shouldn't do but live for yourself but it's a beautiful story that she wanted to give up everything of herself to help him and help the dick who decided to marry her sister absolute asshole that guy he made me mad but yeah the whole family the mom seemed like she hated her children almost then obviously the boyfriend and then the sister was just a dick and then obviously the brother who grew on you the most I feel because you kind of understood after why at the beginning you're just like he's a mooch why is he keep asking people for money and then he ends up obviously making it big and wanting to go back and kind of pay to pay her back for all that helped out and then she ended up getting TB obviously at that time was very common yeah and it's interesting if I if I use and I again I don't know that he intended it but using that parallel of the family being different aspects of the Bengali during the time of partition and how I don't think the mom was necessarily angry with her family as much as her anger was directed at her family I think her anger was at her circumstances which would make sense with the Bengali mind during partition well she said that a bunch of times but you know you're still being a dick but yeah exactly but understandably angry about circumstances behind your control that you wish you wish could change and then the brother if he's representing the artistry it's a time where for example someone like a Satyajit Rai is being recognized internationally which is really the first time that Bengali cinema is recognized on the international stage and he's actually going to Mumbai and getting recognized there but not seeing much of a change happen the art being heralded but the actual circumstances of the people not being changed was the difference and it was Indrani who pointed that out to me she had seen it when she was a little girl and revisited it with me which was beautiful to watch it with her but the whole thing about she was the one who brought up the difference between him and Charlie and as she did it we kind of finished our own sentences where I had said yeah Charlie I was the first advocate who really felt like presenting these circumstances could create a change I don't feel that I feel like he was presenting like a poet does just I can't believe this has happened and it isn't going to change and I think that's what the cloud cap star was it's that pessimism of the cloud is transient the star is it dimming the circumstances dimming the star and as long as that cloud is there I think it had a bunch of meetings very deep just her being by her family obviously as well because she was the star but she kind of gave everything up and absolutely she embodies the title as well absolutely I think there was a lot to really like about it my main issues would probably just be some of the acting in terms of the father especially yeah see that for me like the depth doc I don't mind just him like the other people weren't like that well she was there were many many moments there were many moments from her as well as her love interest that were strictly the only justification for what were being done was it's going to look good on camera many times where he's talking to her and she's here yeah and she just would do this and then save her life well that is solely because it looks yeah but I'm fine with that trope as opposed to the over the top yeah I don't like that that's what I don't like that only would bother me you know who it reminded me of and none of you would understand what this would mean it reminded me of in the miracle worker who played the kernel Nathan no Nathan played the son but anyway he had very similar kind of like over the top shade I don't remember anyway it reminded me of that the only reason it didn't bother me is because I was putting myself into 1960 Bengal theater actors and cinema and the use of something it would be like watching Kabuki theater put into film it's not realism but it is part of the history of theater at the time and yes it's nine years after streetcar so again I'm not going to blame it for not being at the place of streetcar when it is its own entity evolving I think it needs to be measured according to its own concept I know I am I'm comparing them to the other cast yeah many of them will more grounded yeah if all of them were that way I could be like okay whatever cool but like there was just a few standouts they weren't always that way but the father was I'd say 95% all the time that way and so I don't know why that was maybe that's what the father figure in that time was portrayed as just strange to me but like the film other than that very very heartbreaking film and high level cinema just high level artistry in every aspect so that was great let us know what's the next Bengali film after classic month and what's the next classic we should watch and Rithuc Rithuc I'm going to say I'm trusting I may have misheard as well that it's Rithuc Rithuc I want to see everything he's made I think he only had like 10 films I want to see him yeah because I think he died really early he did he died young he died he was my age when he died in the early 70s he was an alcoholic he drank himself to death that's the way to go let us know what's the next film we should watch