The film revolves around Nita, a beautiful young girl who lives with her family, refugees from East Pakistan, in the suburbs of Calcutta. Nita is a self-sacrificing person who is constantly exploited by everyone around her, even her own family, who take her goodness for granted. Her elder brother Shankar does not care for the family as he wants to be a singer, so she needs to take the burden. Her life is ridden with personal tragedy: she loses first her fiancé Sanat, then her job and finally her health by contracting tuberculosis. Her mostly absent would-be singer brother is the only person who cares about her in the end. At the end of the film, she screams out her agony, throwing herself into her brother's arms. She utters her last words: "Brother, I want to survive."
Cast
Production
This film was directed by alternative filmmaker Ritwik Ghatak in Kolkata. In contrast to many Bollywood films made in Mumbai, India's main film center, Ghatak's films are formally elaborate and somber, and often address issues related to the Partition of India. Although Partition is never explicitly mentioned in Meghe Dhaka Tara, it takes place in a refugee camp in the outskirts of Calcutta, and concerns an impoverished genteel Hindu bhadralok family and the problems they face because of Partition. The film is perhaps the most widely viewed film among Ghatak's works; it was his greatest commercial success at home, and coincided with an international film movement towards personal stories and innovative techniques. After Ghatak's death, his work began to attract a more sizable global audience, via film festivals and the subsequent release of DVDs both in India and in Europe. Meghe Dhaka Tara is strongly melodramatic in tone, especially as concerns the sufferings heaped on the protagonist. As in many of his other films, Ghatak also uses surrealistic sound effects, such as sounds of a lashing as the heroine suffers yet another tragic twist of fate.
Music
Jyotirindra Moitra composed the film score. He used classical Indian musical forms and included a song by Rabindranath Tagore, sung to Nita by her brother, Shankar. Moitra also wrote the film music for Ritwik Ghatak's Komalgandhar.
The title 'Meghe Dhaka Tara' was given by me, original story was published in a popular newspaper by the name of 'Chenamukh'. Something in this story stirred me. And that is why Shakespeare's 'The Cloud Capped Star' struck my mind and I decided to pen a new script all together. It could be a bit sentimental, but to throw overtones out of it came to mind gradually. Here I made use of Indian mythology which is a part of my life. 'Meghe Dhaka Tara' expressed my thoughts.
Screening of ''Meghe Dhaka Tara'' in different festivals
1968: Ritwik Film Festival by Calcutta Cine Institute
In 2012, Meghe Dhaka Tara was ranked at #235 and #322 on the Sight & Sound's critics' and directors' poll of "The Greatest Films of All Time" respectively. The movie is also listed in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, which praises "the grace of Ghatak's mise en scène, his expressionist sound design, and the enormous sense of loss."
The Criterion Collection released the latest and definitive restoration of the film on Blu-ray, DVD, and on their streaming platform the Criterion Channel in 2019.
Adaptations
In 2016, Bratya Basu made a Bengali drama based on the plot of this film. The drama was first staged on 2 January 2016 at University Institute Hall at Kolkata.
