Kapurush (The Coward) (1965) .

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#TBT so how about a #Throwback Movie? 😁

#Kapurush (#TheCoward) (1965)

Stunning, criminally underrated Ray.

Man, I get my Underrated Ray's mixed up: #ShakhaProshakha, #Seemabaddha, #AshaniSanket, Kapurush, so I'm glad that the last was the only one available on streaming…what a way to start this collection of movies!

What a perfectly calibrated, self-contained, emotional wallop. This is Ray's Noir, no?, so naturally this being a Bengali Noir the most important murder that takes place is of…the heart💔.

*Stunning* restoration who(m?)ever did it! Not a blemish in all that lovely contrast-y saturated black and white👏!

The cinematography, *luscious* black and white, with those interior(!) sweeping camera moves…#WongKarWai would approve👍. Right from the opening we're hit with a superb single-take, in a film full of great long-takes that all serve to focus your attention on the people within the frame, not the operator outside it.

That slow, longing zoom in the Jeep Willy and that cut to the tram… oh, my… #Almodovar before Almodovar!

(Amader)Soumitra has the delicate task of juggling that deadly combo of feckless Bengali masculinity and tragic Bengali romantic longing (is there any other kind?).

Madhabi, of course, cuts him down to size, oof. Goodness, what a tightly-coiled performance, all jagged edges under that agreeable-smooth veneer😳.

But Haradhan(-da), my goodness, steals the show! The sly motormouth with all that world-weary wisdom, friendly yet slightly threatening, man, his energy really lifts that whole enterprise🤩.

And it all leads up to that riverside siesta sequence (the tension😰!)…and that corker of an ending!

Bah darun!

As TBH so succinctly put it: Oh Bengalis, you always live in regret 😏… *

* wait, wha…😮

PS. Beautiful country, Hasimara, full of rhinos and tragic life choices🤣🤣🤣




[Spoiler Alert!] "Where there's no courage, one resorts to excuses." - is she saying that of *all* Bong dudes😬?!

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#SatyajitRay #SoumenduRoy #DulalDutta
#SoumitraChatterjee #MadhabiMukherjee #HaradhanBannerjee
@criterioncollection

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