The Japanese Wife - An Unusual Love Story!

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I am a big fan of Aparna Sen, both as an actress and a film maker.  I remember admiring her first movie as a director, '36, Chowrangee Lane', in which Shashi Kapoor's wife, Jennifer Kendal played the main character.  It was a serious movie.  Most of you must have seen her 'Mr. & and Mrs. Iyer', a beautiful movie, in which her daughter, Konkona Sen acted as a heroine (opp. Rahul Bose, who is the hero of 'The Japanese wife'). I was interested to watch this movie just because it was Aparna Sen's movie.

Now, to 'The Japanese Wife'! Snehomoy Chatterjee (Rahul Bose), is a school teacher, in a small West Bengal village. The village is like an island.  Only boats connect it to other surrounding towns.  He is fascinated by English and comes across the 'Pen Pal's section in a magazine and starts writing letters to a Japanese friend Miyagi (This girl's sweet English accent is interesting and has acted well). This goes on for a few years and without meeting one another, they plan to get married.  He sends her the white bangles, which the married Bengal women wear, to her.  He wears a wedding band sent by her. They continue to send gifts and mails to each other for many years.  His aunt wants him to marry her friend's daughter, Sandhya, but he continues his friendship with his Japanese wife.  Then the friend's daughter comes and stays with them with her son, as a widow, after her mother's death.  As per the local custom, she wears a white saree and never comes face to face with Snehomoy.  Slowly after sometime, they come to talking terms and even though he becomes slightly attracted to her, he goes back to writing letters to his Japanese wife.  Her son comes closer to him.  That boy also acted very well. Then Miyagi gets ill and Snehomoy goes to all types of doctors and sends herbs and golis to his wife and talks to her over phone to console her, with his broken English. His expression while searching for doctors for his wife's illness is superb.  He is so much in love with his wife that he takes 6 months' unpaid leave to search for doctors to cure her illness. Such devotion! The love and concern for his unseen wife is visible in his face, so well.  Then one allopathy doctor asks him to bring his wife to him for treatment, he gets very upset.  On the way back, he is caught in a storm and then dies of pneumonia.  In the end, they show his white saree clad Miyagi, with shaved head, coming to his/her home.

Moushumi Chatterjee who has acted as his aunt (mausi), was a famous actress in her hay days and here, she has done her job superbly. Raima Sen (Moon Moon Sen's daughter) as Sandhya was a surprise.  I know her as an average actress - sort of 'item girl' actress. Her acting is superb, here, in this movie. She must be a director's actress.  If the director is good, she is good! She has got huge, expressive eyes! Rahul Bose, is a good actor.  Here, the subdued acting as a villager, takes him to a higher level. His body language is just like a villager's. His slow English with typical Bengali accent is very endearing! He keeps on saying, "my English while writing is better than while talking"! Miyagi's (Japanese actress, Chigusa Takaku) English also matched with his English! Her soft voice and expression is very interesting.  Oh, I have to mention about the kite competition, which is very interesting! Snehamoy sends the kites his wife sent him, to the sky, as if he is connecting with his wife. I liked the way the villagers' and Sandhya's son's interaction here. The movie is like our normal movie in this portion! The picturization of the movie is superb!

The first half of the movie is tooooo slow.  You need lot of patience to continue watching! The next half of the movie speeds up a bit.  But in the end, you feel that you have watched a good movie! Rahul Bose and Aparna Sen give us that feeling! I watched the movie without sub-titles for the first half an hour, thinking that I will just follow it with Hindi words with an 'o' accent! But no, it was difficult! Well, did I tell you? This is a Bengali movie!

Let me show a small video clip, so that you can have a taste of the movie. The way Rahul Bose grows up from a young man to middle aged man...his hesitation in body movement in the middle age...well, he is superb, thanks to Aparna Sen. A clean movie to watch...no item songs or dances! No songs at all! Still, I had a good feeling after the movie was over!

Picture courtesy: Google

Edited to add on 21.12.11: Though I have given the wikipedia link to the movie, I thought I should mention that the movie is based on the novel of the same name by the Bengali writer, Mr. Kunal Basu.

Edited to add on 22.12.11!: Please read my friend Kavita's comment in the comment section! It is interesting!