Jalsaghar

Saw Jalsaghar (AKA The Music Room) It followed the tragic tale of a rich nobleman who loved music in a desperate, morbid, decadent way. He is in financial trouble, we know, but he keeps throwing lavish concerts, clearly hoping to bury his anxiety over the future under showy displays of wealth. His family and even his servants beg him to leave off this self-destructive behaviour, but it slowly becomes his only refuge. Meanwhile, next door the future is arriving in the form of a nouveau riche farmer who interrupts the protagonist's music with his electric generators and his automobile and his fleet of tractors.

The film's heart is entirely on the side of the decadent aristocrat. It is not always kind to him, but it is completely sympathetic to him. He is not a contemptible figure but a tragic one. Very nice use of symbolism and the main character is filmed (especially as he gets older) is beautiful. The film is a bit dry, dealing as it does with the archetype of the rich dude who tragically goes broke and something something old ways are best ways, something something march of progress, and so on.

I am still too young and unsentimental to not really care about preserving traditions yet and thus this doesn't really hit as poignantly for me as I think it should. I felt the protagonist was usually being more childish than grand and though I feel I understand his motivations, I don't really accept them. Perhaps we are meant to reject the wallow in tragedy and instead view the film as a cautionary tale against an inability to change? Either way, I think this film would be age very well. It's very stirring at the end, very well plotted, and well characterized. A good movie.