The Music Room - Criterion Collection (Blu-ray)

The Music Room - Criterion Collection (Blu-ray)With The Music Room (Jalsaghar), Satyajit Ray brilliantly evokes the crumbling opulence of the world of a fallen aristocrat (the beloved actor Chhabi Biswas) desperately clinging to a fading way of life. His greatest joy is the music room in which he has hosted lavish concerts over the yearsnow a shadow of its former vivid self. An incandescent depiction of the clash between tradition and modernity, and a showcase for some of Indias most popular

With The Music Room (Jalsaghar), Satyajit Ray brilliantly evokes the crumbling opulence of the world of a fallen aristocrat (the beloved actor Chhabi Biswas) desperately clinging to a fading way of life. His greatest joy is the music room in which he has hosted lavish concerts over the years—now a shadow of its former vivid self.

An incandescent depiction of the clash between tradition and modernity, and a showcase for some of India’s most popular musicians of the day, The Music Room is a defining work by the great Bengali filmmaker.

Region B Blu-ray: Australian compatible.

SPECIAL FEATURES

• New high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack
• Satyajit Ray (1984), a feature documentary by Shyam Benegal that chronicles Ray’s career through interviews with the filmmaker, family photographs, and extensive clips from his films
• New interviews with Satyajit Ray biographer Andrew Robinson and filmmaker Mira Nair
• Excerpt from a 1981 French roundtable discussion with Ray, film critic Michel Ciment, and director Claude Sautet
• New and improved English subtitle translation
• PLUS: A new essay by critic Philip Kemp, a 1963 essay by Ray on the film’s location, and a 1986 interview with the director about the film’s music