I first watched it when I was a teen in Delhi. It was showcased as one of the masterpieces of Satyajit Ray's creations as the Great Film-maker who had won an Oscar Award for Life Time Achievement. SR at the time of Award Announcement was critically ill and hospitalized. His award was presented to him at the hospital. Doordarshan at the footsteps of the Oscard Recognition, then showcased all SR's masterpieces beginning with Pather Panchali.
Kanchenjunga Movie stood out for me. There was something about it which one may not be able to talk about, but there was a depth of emotion added to the majestic silence of the movie just like the backdrop of Kanchenjunga mountain. The events of the moview are mundane and very much the same for the mountain. Its the same when sun rises, spreading the light in the valley, people trekking or away on chores, then by noon time, clouds coming up leading to mist formation and soon the indication of sun to be going down so that travellers, trekkers or daily grind getting the direction to recede to shelters. The sun goes down by 3 PM in the mountains. My parents have trekked while walking to Hemkund from Gobind Ghat on the Rishikesh-Badrinath Highway. They had told stories how it is on the mountains.
And just like that Sun-rise, the advent of clouds, the formation of Mist and clearing of Mist, and onset of Sun Set with decreasing Temperatures, the events for the day are goal-set for the protagonists, the ascent begins, self-doubts as hurdles are thrown in with mind grappling to find that foot-hold to survive the drum of terrifying chaos and fear of unknown and once finding that hold, holding to it steadfastly and with a resolved mind making an effort to go about the descent into the shelter of personal awareness that will take them to a new day. Its a gaining for many, losing for a few and none-changing for some, nevertheless a day of life-changing events for all of them. The Mountain shows its majestic power only by the end of the movie and its excellently captured as it defeats RaiBahadur Indranath Roy, a successful businessman, Chairman of 5 Companies, who has quelled his dependents into submissive silence and pretentious obediance to his idea of a Material Existence.
This was Satyajit Ray's Original Screenplay and a movie ahead of many years. To me its one of Ray's pearls. Beautiful, elegant, lustrous and poignant. Its a poetry as the dialogues, scenes and music blend in to become a beautiful narrative of natural elements controlling the human objects. Its that grand place where the Powerful man or Submissive man or self-effacing Woman from Calcutta will have to relinquish his existence for once and admit to the majestic strength of nature and stand witness to the tempest and chaos in his or her heart, which they had failed to see for a long time.
Its beautiful, how Labonya, Indranath's submissive wife breaks down and finds her lost self, how she finds her singing back and before she can even realize what happened to her, before she can have heart to heart tete-a-tete with her kind spirited brother, the mother and woman in her knows what she has to advise her daughter to protect her and what she has to do support her daughter.
Its remarkable how Monisha, Indranath's younger daughter, who knows about everyone in her family, is finally able to break herself out of her own self-fortified decorum, etiquette of a good daughter's duties and see that without adding heart to her polite actions and not wanting to pain anyone is nevertheless becoming a consequential pain to herself as others are able to read her actions no matter how greatly she can mask her true desires. Its brought out excellently through how men see or read her as, how her father controls her and expects certain fixed response from her, how her brother-in-law wants her not to be scared and giving in, how Mr.Bannerji, her best-fit potential suitor reading her diginified social silence and becoming honest with her forcing her to become honest with him and how a stranger is able to mock at her polite manners and concern, making her comprehend how even an unfit person for her proper company is so close to being human and independent, which is infact liberating and enticing to be attached to him, to flow in that inspiration to find her own voice.
The best part of the movie for me is when Monisha is being called upon to cite her decision, when the mist has already gathered around them, it becoming all dark, her internal chaos, her excited and scared heart is presented to us with passing by drums of the passing by trekking crowd, which is a noise indicative of ringing bells like an alarm. She runs from that chaos in all excitement only to reach her destination with another kind of band playing forcing her to stop escaping from taking the hard decision and to decide once for all by keeping aside trying to be the polite and unhurting pleasant self to all. Its time to take the tough and unpleasant decisions. This piece of screenplay and direction was best to me. And that does not mean that I am not impressed what happens to Mr. Bannerjee (Monisha's suitor) and Ashok (the stranger). They have their liberating experiences as well.
What Mr. Bannerjee decides for himself and Monisha is remarkable of him, an honest and experienced man that he is. The mountain and him remain friends just as Monisha's uncle is in peace with his surroundings.
Ashok, young and poor man he is, as compared to the rich and successful company he tumbles into non-chalantly nevertheless has mystifying surreal experience on that day. He is able to voice what he believes with honesty, courage and in all humility to his circumstantial existence before the stalwart, before the symbol of success itself. Ofcourse not without the great help from the Rai Bahadur who is arrogant and callous enough to make less of all the effort that went into make our country independent. After all he is a History Graduate. What is admirable about the young man that he is able to hold to his thoughts inspite of him getting pulled into the swamp of alluring beautiful company and material success. He is able to break through the mirage, the mist and call the beautiful company as a pretension at kindness when it is given without an inclination to truly participate in the events of the future and also see it as genuine concern when the weight of the emotions as seen from the extra effort makes him see it. He is also able stop himself from getting tempted to easy found success when he refuses the stepping stone opportunity for him which is actually a charitable employment provided by the Rai Bahadur.
Finally the couple salvaging their marriage is again beautiful to see. All that they did was refuse to talk to each other in honesty out of fear and anger. And all it takes them to respect each other into honesty is trying to be true to themselves while respecting the other as well. Its was that simple to fix their lives and they wasted 10 years of their marriage and had to come to Darjeeling and talk on the last day of the trip there.
Indranath's fall and his loneliness by the end of the movie cannot be called tragic as it was bound to happen. When one climbs up the mountain of success and wishes to stay there, he is left alone there. That's the price one has to pay anyways. He is another Kanchenjunga in himself. One has to decide whether he wants to ascend to be near him or descend from his summit point.
The uncles of both Monisha and Ashok remain unchanged just as brother of Monisha remains unchanged. But then those three men depict static equilibrium states who are well grounded in their foothold and are not truly concerned about ascent and descent in their lives.
The movie language is Bengali-English. The Youtube video we have here is subtitled in English. The english spoken by Indranath or Mr.Bannerjee or Indranath's son is excellent....straight from the Brits. Hahaha!!!!!
Well, the credits and cast can be checked at these links. Feeling done with at this time with long write-up.
