The Coward (1965) – also known as Kapurush – is a film by Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray. Having only seen Pather Panchali, I am still pretty clueless about Ray’s filmography and only heard about The Coward with the recent Criterion Channel’s spotlight on the director’s work. The story itself – a screenwriter encounters a past love while scouting for locations – and the brief running time (74 minutes) drew me into watching The Coward. Amitabha Roy (played by Soumitra Chatterjee) is a screenwriter whose car breaks down in the countryside. An enterprising businessman Bimal Gupta (Haradhan Bandopadhyay) who manages a tea farm offers Amitabha a place to stay for the night in exchange for his company. When they walk through the door to Bimal’s property, Amitabha is struck by the sight of Bimal’s wife, Karuna (Madhabi Mukherjee) – they used to be in love when they were in college. They don’t acknowledge their shared history and we follow Amitabha’s reverie into the past with occasional flashbacks and to his private conversations in the present with Karuna – she was the one that got away, or rather he let get away (hence the title). Taking place over one night and day, The Coward has an emotional heft comparable to Ingmar Bergman or Wong Kar-wai movies, a simple scenario that can contain big emotions, about regrets and memories, while also being a stark character study of a weak, regretful man. Not having seen many other Ray movies, I didn’t realise Chatterjee and Murkherjee were regular actors he would use – and they are so great in this movie – Chatterjee has such a haunted look which contrasts with his past cocky behaviour. Mukherjee is such a force, not giving anything away in terms of how she feels about Chatterjee’s character, whether she is happy or not in her current marriage. There is some commentary on class and social systems as well. It had the punch and pull of a sharply written short story (based on a story by Premendra Mitra). I loved how Ray used the camera – framing a scene and then pushing in, or stepping back to reorientate the frame and change the emotional current of a scene. Available to stream on Criterion Channel. Recommended.
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