[jyotirmoy]

Watched Rituparno's Utsav(Celebration) tonight. A beautiful film in all respects. The sons and daughters of an old family come together to celebrate Durga Puja in their ancestral house where the mother lives alone. Old tensions are simmering between the sisters. To add to the tensions, the fact that an offer has been made to buy the ancestral house comes to light; it also brings a long issue of how the profit should be divided. Will the tensions increase or will the blessings of the goddess Durga prevail and heal keep the viewer engaged while Mamta Shanker, Madhabi Mukherjee and Rituparna Sengupta do wonderful acting.

[dzibead]

This sounds great but the only DVD I could find on line is for some completely different movie with the same title!  Grrrr    Maybe one of the Indian cinema shops in Berkeley will have it ...

[Somerset]

It is available from Nehaflix as Utsab; on sale now for only $7.

Seems like a very nice movie; thanks for mentioning it.

[Hyderabadi]

dzibead, on May 4 2009, 02:31 PM, said:

This sounds great but the only DVD I could find on line is for some completely different movie with the same title!  Grrrr    Maybe one of the Indian cinema shops in Berkeley will have it ...

Dzi, I think you may have found a previous Utsav ( I thought Jyoti da was talking about that when I saw the post), directed by Girish Karnad and produced by Shashi Kapoor:

Quote

The film is based on the adaptation on two classical Sanskrit plays, Charudatta by Bhāsa, which was later adapted by Śhudraka in 6 Century A.D. as Mrichakatika about the life of courtesan, Vasantasena (Rekha), and her chance meeting with a poor boy, Charudatta (Shekhar Suman) in Ujjain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utsav

Quote

Based on the 6th century A.D. Sanskrit play "The Golden Toy Chariot" by the famous Indian playwright Bhasa, "Utsav" faithfully follows Bhasa's story-line. Vasantasena, a courtesan who dances at the King Palaka's court hides in Charudatta's house while running away from the amorous attentions of the king's brother-in-law. She falls in love with Charudatta, though he is married and penniless. They have an affair. Meanwhile, the rightful heir to the throne - King Palaka's brother - escapes from prison. While he is being pursued by the king's troops, Charudatta helps him. The king's brother-in-law strangles Vasantasena when she refuses to submit to him and leaves her for dead. When Charudatta tries to have her jewels pawned, he is arrested for her murder.

more at IMDb: http://www.imdb.com/...335/plotsummary

Another link, has more detail with pictures: http://parallelcinem...utsav-1984.html

Strangely the IMDb page has the box cover of the Utsav Jyoti da has posted about.

Mrichakatikam, I remember was part of our Telugu (in classic Telugu, which has a lot of Sanskrit) syllabus in high school and we had to write an essay in the final exam.

[jyotirmoy]

Dear Somerset,
Utsab is the way how Bengalis will pronounce.

[dzibead]

Thanks, Somerset.  I'll check that out.

[jyotirmoy]

I went back & checked the title printed on the DVD cover. It IS UTSAB.

[dzibead]

I just got it from Nehaflix via Amazon, thanks to Somerset's lead.  Now the question is: will it have English subtitles?  I'll soon find out, I guess.

[jyotirmoy]

Yes the film has quite good English subtitles.
dzibead, let us know your comments on this film.