In Bengal in the forties, a group of young people fight for independence. Their leader is Indranath, a brilliant young man rejected by the colonial establishment. To inspire his collection of revolutionaries, he especially counts on the young and very emancipated Ela, the ‘muse’ of the group. Ela however often disagrees with Indranath, who is regularly obliged to apply the same cruelty as the colonial system he is fighting. Indranath does not feel any shame when he has to sacrifice several young lives for his political ends. Ela is in love with Atindra, a boy with a poetic disposition who is forced to undertake dubious actions and doesn’t know whether he is a revolutionary or a criminal. Then Indranath orders Atindra to kill Ela.The film Char Adhyay is not always easy but displays upright motives and is beautiful to behold. It is based on a story by the Indian writer and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941), who was a proponent of the ‘Bengali Renaissance’: an intellectual and spiritual movement that wanted to bind together ‘Indian’ and Western values. Shahani, previously represented in Rotterdam by Khayal Gatha, Kasba and Bhavantarana (1989-1991), transcends the ingrained genre consciousness of Indian film and incorporates elements from dance, music and painting to make poetic features, often with a historical angle.
