In 1955, Satyajit Ray stunned the international film community with his debut film, Pather Panchali. A hit at the Cannes Film Festival, it introduced him as a figure to be watched, a filmmaker of great potential. His later efforts would do no disservice to those expectations. In 1958, he created what may be his greatest work, quite a statement considering how many great works this director produced. Yet The Music Room is a film of such deeply felt empathy it may qualify as not only his greatest work but one of the greatest works of world cinema.

The opening of the film, from credits to flashback, draws the viewer so immediately into a world of listlessness, decay, and futility, that it's hard to imagine another film, perhaps Citizen Kane (1941), maybe Sunset Boulevard (1950), doing so precise a job at visualizing a once grand spirit now lost to time and neglect. The credits come first, a simple shot of an opulent chandelier, swaying gently in the middle of a black void as the camera pulls in ever closer. As the credits end, the camera looks upon an older man, clearly a powerful man, more slumped than seated, on the rooftop of a mansion that seems less a palace than a faded pencil drawing of a once grand estate. The camera focuses in on the face of Biswambhar Roy (Chhabi Biswas) and slowly pulls out. The lens focus is so narrow that even the chair back he sits against is slightly out of focus. His face less so, his fingers on the handle of an expensive cane in sharp relief. The past is faded and the present is sadly in full view. As a servant approaches and sets up the master's hooka, Biswambhar stares ahead blankly, dead to the world around him. As the servant walks away, Biswambhar asks him, "What month is this?" What month. Not what time or even what day, but what month. Biswambhar is now an apathetic spirit haunting his own life.

When Biswambhar hears music, he inquires of his servant its origin. Told it's from his neighbor, a money lender that Biswambhar looks down upon, he seems resigned to the fact that the dying caste system has placed him on the outs while businessmen are on their way in. His neighbor, Mahim Ganguly (Gangapada Basu), is celebrating the initiation of his son and Biswambhar begins to think back on the initiation of his own son. This sets in motion a series of flashbacks in which we learn how Biswambhar's world came apart and how he arrived at the unreality he now occupies.

It is the 1920's and the world of feudalism that once gave Biswambhar's ancestors power and wealth is now gone, leaving Biswambhar with an ever dwindling fortune and no promise of future income. His music room is the one thing that gives him pleasure and he uses whatever money he has left to hold concerts there. Three concerts make up the bulk of the film with each one seeing Biswambhar's world crumble ever more decisively into the desolate riverlands that surround his mansion. The ending is as crushing as it is inevitable. Biswambhar recognizes there is nothing left of his world but an image of power he presents in his music room, the room that swaying chandelier inhabits, and yet he won't acknowledge it.

The setting of The Music Room is as important to the film as the characters played by the actors. For the location of the decaying palace, Ray scouted and found an old palace in Nimtita in Bengal that perfectly captured what he was looking for. Surrounded by dried out river plains, it seems as isolated and remote as Xanadu and just as uninviting. The music was also an important aspect of the film. For his Apu films, the first of which was Pather Panchali, Ray used Ravi Shankar, but for The Music Room, he felt he needed a more traditional, classical approach. He chose Vilayat Khan who provides the film with the Indian music that underlines the emotions, fear, and nostalgia of its protagonist. Later, in interviews, Ray, who would later compose for his own films, said he would have made the music more melancholic, perhaps undercutting more precisely what was on the screen. Nonetheless, he was happy with the results, a score that works beautifully as an equal storyteller in the film.

Satyajit Ray was one of the greatest filmmakers in the world at a time when the cinema was seeing an explosion of new movements from Italy to France to Japan to Czechoslovakia. Ray represented India for most but for the world film community, his works represented all of humanity. To this day, they are some of the greatest works of art to deal with the desolation of the soul and the rejuvenation of the spirit. The Music Room is one of his best.

Director: Satyajit Ray
Writer: Satyajit Ray, Santi P. Choudhury
Producer: Satyajit Ray
Music: Ustad Vilayat Khan, Robin Majumdar
Cinematographer: Subrata Mitra
Film Editor: Dulal Dutta
Production Designer: Bansi Chandragupta
Art Director: Bansi Chandragupta
Cast: Chhabi Biswas (Huzur Biswambhar Roy), Sardar Akhtar (Singer), Gangapada Basu (Mahim Ganguly), Bismillah Khan (Musician), Salamat Ali Khan (Khyal singer), Waheed Khan (Ustad Ujir Khan), Roshan Kumari (Krishna Bai, dancer), Tulsi Lahiri (Manager of Roy's Estate), Padma Devi (Mahamaya, Roy's wife), Kali Sarkar (Roy's Servant), Pinaki Sengupta (Khoka, Roy's Son)

By Greg Ferrara