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Encyclopedia

On This Day

02 May, 2021

Cinemaazi remembers Satyajit Ray on his birth anniversary

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films

Bariwali The Lady Of House (2000)

Rituparno Ghosh

Release Date2000
GenreDrama
FormatColor
LanguageBengali
Length4155.04 metres
Gauge35mm
Censor RatingA
Censor Certificate NumberCIL/3/80/1999-MUM
Certificate Date31/12/1999

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In sprawling Old country mansion that has obviously seen better days lives a lonely middle-aged spinster who had given up all hopes of finding a husband after her intended groom died of snake-bite two days before her wedding day many years ago. An eccentric old retainer and a recently recruited fresh young maid are her only companions . Forced now by rising taxes to let out her home to a film unit for three weeks, she is shaken out of her lethargy by a sudden rush of strangers intruding her privacy night and day. Foremost among them is the Director himself whose apparently sensitive and magnetic personality draws out all her suppressed longings. She finds him irresistible, and he knows it. He can twist her around his little finger, and he does. He is adept at handling women to suit his purposes. It's all in the interests of good cinema after all.

The heroine of his present film is another of his discards who holds a torch for him still. But the Lady of the House still hopes to win his heart. Tremulous as a teenager, she is even persuaded by him to do a small role in the film. Naive and secluded as she is, she little realizes how ruthlessly exploitative the real world can be. Long after the soothing is over she keeps waiting in vain hope; but all her letters go unanswered. After weeks of silence her only confidante, the young assistant art director drops in with a gift from him. Still later, a letter arrives from the same young man carrying a bunch of still photographs, and the news that the little scene in which she had acted had been edited out to save footage. The bitter truth comes home to her at last. She has been nothing but a useful 'contact.' Her flesh and blood identity, her feelings, could hardly be given precedence over the celluloid masterpiece.

[from the official press booklet]