The Cloud-Capped Star

1960
India
2h 6min
15

Directed by: Ritwik Ghatak

Neither a Bollywood extravaganza nor the precise lyricism of Satyajit Ray, Ghatak's evocation of a woman's struggle to retain hope in an unjust world is a highly mannered, forcefully emotional melodrama. The purpose isn't simply to describe the daily grind of post-war India, but also the wider effects of modernity on a society already contending with its own primitiveness.