Once Satyajit Ray was asked, “Which of your films would you like to remake?” He answered that, if possible, he would have remade all his films except for “Charulata”. It was only “Charulata” that he thought was made “perfectly” and he would like to keep it that way. Well, now an expatriate Bengali film maker, Amitabha Neil Ray, is trying to recreate history. Amitabha is planning on making “Charu: Unspoken”, a modern version of Tagore and Ray’s Charulata set in current day America. To some, it may sound like sacrilege. To remake what most people think as a classic, to try to better one of the best film craftsman of all times, is what only few would like to dare. The stakes are too high, the expectations are sky reaching – almost impossible to meet, and failure seems to be inevitable. But, isn’t that what geniuses strive for? Isn’t the challenge to excel, to better the best, to pursue the dream to the end, what drives artists to create their master pieces? Didn’t Ray himself take the leap to recreate another master creators work and make it even better in many ways? Great works of art always inspires other artists, and that is why Ray’s “Charulata” drives artists like Amitabha Neil Ray to remake his own, “Charu: Unspoken”. Continue reading
Remaking Charulata
Reply
. The film had officially premiered the earlier evening which unfortunately, I was not able to attend. However, the producers of the film were kind enough to arrange couple of seats for me for the special screening for the Museum of Moving Images which included a Q&A session with the director Mira Nair (and surprise guests Tabu and Irfan Khan).