Deep Jweley Jai (1959)

Original version of Sen’s Rajesh Khanna psychodrama Khamoshi (1969) and one of Suchitra Sen’s best-known performances. She plays Radha, the hospital nurse employed by a progressive psychiatrist (Sanyal). She is expected to develop a personal relationship with the male patients as part of their therapy. The doctor diagnoses Tapash’s(B. Choudhury) problem as an unresolved Oedipal dilemma - the inevitable consequence, he says, for men who are denied a nurturing woman. He orders the nurse to play that role, even though on an earlier, similar occasion she fell in love with the patient. Radha bears up to Tapash’s violence, wears red-bordered silk saris to impersonate his mother, sings his poetic compositions and, in the process, falls in love yet again. In the end, having brought about Tapash’s mental cure, Radha has a nervous breakdown. Suchitra Sen’s hauntingly beautiful, often partly lit close-ups set the tone for the film’s visual style. Hemanta Mukherjee’s music, e.g. Ei raat tomar amar, used a whistling chorus as a sort of leitmotif and contributed greatly to the movie’s success.