ʀᴏꜱʜᴀɴ ᴋᴜᴍᴀʀɪ ɪɴ ᴊᴀʟꜱᴀɢᴀʀ (ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴜꜱɪᴄ ʀᴏᴏᴍ) As a fellow Bengali, I don't know Satyajit Ray's output of 40 feature films as comprehensively as I should. I recently watched his 1963 saga of female empowerment and fragile masculinity, Mahanagar (The Big City). It's astonishing. And tonight, I saw his 1958 breakthrough, Jalsagar (The Music Room) — which, interestingly enough, both @sumi_v and @riversbenfilm said was a fave of theirs. There's a near 10 minute sequence where Roshan Kumari dances kathak — Indian classical dance — set to appropriately intensive live music. It's wordless. Except the acoustic jewelry on her ankles (I forget the name for it) means she's as much an instrument as the tabla. It culminates in this breathtaking sequence where the camera crops her feet as they seem to move faster and faster, maybe even faster than the 24fps of the black and white camera. Two of the audience — all men of course — stand in for our disbelief at what is happening. Sort of rapture. Kumari's face never breaks a sweat. It really is one of the most exhilarating sequences of pure cinema I've seen: the body as motor, conduit, trance.