Goynar Baksho

The film is based on a novel Goynar Baksho and a short story Rashmonir Sonadana, both written by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay and published in Desh magazine. The film premiered in Kolkata on 12 April 2013.

Goynar Baksho
Movie poster
Directed by	Aparna Sen
Written by	Aparna Sen
Based on	Goynar Baksho and Rashmonir Sonadana by Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay
Produced by	Shrikant Mohta Mahendra Soni
Starring	Moushumi Chatterjee Konkona Sen Sharma Srabanti Chatterjee Saswata Chatterjee Kaushik Sen
Cinematography	Soumik Haldar
Edited by	Rabiranjan Maitra
Music by	Debojyoti Mishra
Distributed by	Shree Venkatesh Films
Release date	12 April 2013 (2013-04-12)
Running time	141 minutes
Country	India
Language	Bengali

The film revolves around women of three generations and their lives and changing positions in society. And this is shown about a jewelry box. The lead character is the matriarch of a Bengali Hindu family (Moushumi Chatterjee) of landed gentry in East Bengal. She was married off in an arranged marriage at age 11, and widowed shortly thereafter. The story of the film revolves around her wedding jewels, which she keeps sequestered in a box. To escape violence in East Pakistan during the partition of India, her family moves to India, losing their ancestral lands in the process. She spends the remainder of her life, apparently as a chaste widow, hiding her wedding jewels from her greedy relatives in the joint family. In 1949, she befriends the new bride of the family, her niece-in-law (Konkona Sen Sharma) shortly before dying.

The niece-in-law is visited by the spirit of the matriarch, who demands that she hide the jewelry box from her greedy relatives. Over the years, the family descends into poverty, losing money in judicial proceedings over family property disputes, while the niece-in-law, regularly monitored by the spirit of the matriarch, keeps the jewels hidden. Eventually, the spirit of the matriarch allows the niece-in-law to pawn some of the jewels so that her husband (Saswata Chatterjee) can set up a business, over the objections of the family, selling saris. The prosperity of the business allows her to buy the jewels back, completing the hidden collection. The niece-in-law discovers that her husband is having an affair, and complains to the ghost of the matriarch. The ghost of the matriarch regales her with a story of a torrid sexual liaison that she had with a laborer when she was alive and young and encourages the niece-in-law to take on a lover of her own. The niece-in-law at first falls in love with the secret lover but later she returns to her husband and gives birth to a girl. The ghost fails to succeed in her endeavor of uniting the niece-in-law and her lover abandons the niece-in-law and begins to visit her daughter, the ghost's grandniece instead.

The final part of the film revolves around the daughter as she grows up (Srabanti Chatterjee) and becomes a modern Bengali Indian woman; going to college, driving, and becoming involved in politics. The film approaches the year 1971 when the Bangladesh Liberation War breaks out in East Pakistan. Bengalis in East Pakistan demand political, cultural, and linguistic freedom from the intense and brutal oppression of Pakistan, and rebel against West Pakistan. The daughter's lover regularly crosses the border over to East Pakistan to aid the Mukti Bahini rebels in their struggle for freedom. The 1971 Bangladesh genocide becomes a backdrop of the film, and one of the rebels is murdered by a Pakistani death squad, following which the ghost of the matriarch advises the daughter to donate the jewels to the cause of the Mukti Bahini.

Aparna Sen thought to make this film in 1993. But, she was not getting the right production house to finance the film. That's why she had to delay the project so long. Sen told–

When I first read the book way back in 1993, I instantly decided to turn it into celluloid, but the delay was due to not getting the right production house to finance the film. Now finally it is happening.

• Moushumi Chatterjee as Rashmoni / Pishima
• Konkona Sen Sharma as Somalata
• Srabanti Chatterjee as Chaitali / Young Rashmoni
• Saswata Chatterjee as Chandan
• Paran Bandopadhyay as Chandan's Father
• Aparajita Addya as Chandan's Sister in Law
• Pijush Ganguly as Chandan's Elder Brother
• Manasi Sinha as Chandan's Mother
• Kaushik Sen as Rafiq
• Koushik Roy as Banwarilal aka Benu/ Ram Khilawan
• Monu Mukhopadhyay as Chandan's Paternal Uncle
• Sudipta Chakraborty as Kamala
• Pradip Mukherjee as Doctor
• Rudraneel Das

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