The Cloud-Capped Star

Nita is a selfless young woman who lives with her family in Calcutta. She comes from a refugee middle-class family from East Pakistan. Her father can’t work due to an accident, and her older brother believes he has to perfect his singing skills before he can make money from it. Thus, it is up to Nita to take care of her family. Her personal life is not without issues either, because her lover also seems to be interested in her sister. Nita lives her life caring for others, but when she is in need of help herself, it seems she is left all on her own.

Ben Singer: “Deeply and subtly localized in its historic context of post-partition Bengal, Ritwik Ghatak’s poignant classic offers up an intriguingly eccentric blend of Parallel Cinema neorealism, art-film stylization, and popular-melodrama formulism. With its spotlight on patterns of selflessness and parasitism, it exemplifies melodrama’s ultimate focus on threats to human autonomy.”

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