A Soft Note on a Sharp Scale (E-Flat)

Said to be Ghatak’s favorite film, the quasi-autobiographical E-Flat portrays the People’s Theater Movement of the late 1940s, agonizing over its jealousies and schisms as two rival groups seek to put on a joint production. The title comes from a Tagore poem in which a girl is compared with a particular melody and the melody, in turn, with Bengal. The script has an equally elaborate structure in which the divided mind of the film’s heroine, Anasuya, mirrors the divided leadership of the People’s Theater and, ultimately, a divided Bengal.