The Coward (Satyajit Ray, 1965) (Patreon)

I wanted to complete my Ray run with an unusual selection, a film that doesn't seem to hold an especially high place in the director's canon. So I want to thank Adam Nayman for his insightful review on Letterboxd, which indicated that The Coward is both uncharacteristic of Ray and also of a piece with his humanist outlook. This is certainly different from the other Ray films I've watched this month, primarily because it is neither a period piece nor is it focused on the rural poor. Quite the opposite, The Coward is a highly theatrical showdown between Bengali sophisticates, none of whom is exactly what they seem.

The film begins in an isolated Esso station, where we meet Amitabha (Soumitra Chatterjee), a screenwriter who is traveling through the countryside. His car has broken down, and getting the necessary part will take at least a day. So he is invited to stay with Bimal (Haradhan Bandopadhyay), a wealthy Bengali tea grower he meets by chance. As Bimal explains, he was forced to move to the sticks from Kolkata in order to manage his fields, and he's delighted to meet another educated Bengali to spend time with. 

The contrast between the two men could hardly be more pronounced. Amitabha is taciturn and a bit dyspeptic; Bimal is almost studiedly gregarious, endlessly talkative, freely alternating between Bengali and English, and even throwing in a few stray French words. As Ray has designed these characters, they seem to represent a new twist on the director's common theme of tradition vs. modernity. Amitabha is an urban artist on the lookout for "local color" (as Bimal remarks in English). Bimal is a successful corporate man whose apparent joie de vivre is an outsized compensation for the compromises he's made in life. (He comments that the area where he lives strictly observes the caste system, and he manages his discomfort by getting drunk on the regular.)

When Bimal brings Amitabha to his home, the screenwriter is shocked to see that the agri-industrialist's wife is none other than Karuna (Madhabi Mukherjee), a woman who was once romantically involved with Amitabha. Through extended flashbacks, we learn that the two of them were once struggling bohemians, she a painter and he a fledgling writer. Her wealthy family disapproved of the union, but Karuna was prepared to sever all ties, marrying Amitabha and running away with him. He balks, considering marriage too rash. With this decision, he loses Karuna for good.

Ray organizes The Coward as an elegant three-hander focused on regret and commitment. Amitabha refuses to believe that Karuna can truly be in love with Bimal. Behind his back, Amitabha pleads with Karuna to run away with him, as he has never loved anyone else since their earlier split. For her part, Karuna refuses to wear her emotions on her sleeve. She does not profess her love for Bimal, but neither does she indicate that their union is unsatisfying. She simply refuses to give Amitabha any clarity on the matter, and understandably so. He behaves as if he is entitled to her honesty, but of course she owes him nothing.

Although The Coward is somewhat stilted, with its three characters all obviously playing their defined social roles, there is something here that suggests an influence on Asghar Farhadi. This is a film that depicts love's opposite not as hate but as a highly sculpted indifference. The screenwriter, by dint of being a creative intellectual, considers himself to be a better man than Bimal the crass capitalist. But both he and Karuna have faced down life's disappointments and moved forward through compromise. Ray asks us to consider that Amitabha's high-minded ideals may in fact be a form of self-deception. The coward assuages his sense of failure by insisting that no available options are worthy of him. Joyless stasis, then, is mistaken for integrity