The Home and the World) is a 1984 Indian Bengali-language romantic drama film directed and written by Satyajit Ray.

The film has a complex portrayal of several themes including nationalism, women emancipation, spiritual and materialistic take on life, tradition versus modernism, and others.

The story is set in 1907 on the estate of the rich and influential Bengali noble Nikhilesh "Nikhil" Choudhary (Victor Banerjee) in Sukhsayar.

In the chaotic aftermath of Lord Curzon's partition of Bengal into Muslim and Hindu states, the Swadeshi movement is trying to impose a boycott of foreign goods by claiming that imports are at the root of Indian poverty.

He lives happily with his wife Bimala and his widowed sister-in-law until the appearance of his friend, a revolutionist and a strong supporter of the Swadeshi movement, Sandip (Soumitra Chatterjee).

Although Sandip doesn't concede defeat and starts to make some sinister plan when local poor Muslim tenants also refused to stop buying and selling foreign goods.

Satyajit Ray wrote a script for Ghare Baire in the 1940s, but the film, which was to have been directed by Harisadhan Dasgupta, was never made.

[9] Some critics (including Mitra) thought Swatilekha Chatterjee was miscast as Bimala, as she herself recounts in a recent interview, more than thirty years after the release of the film.

When it comes to truthfulness about women's lives, this great Indian moviemaker Satyajit Ray shames the American and European directors of both sexes.

"[10] Vincent Canby wrote in the New York Times: "As with the works of any great director, The Home and the World defies easy categorization.

In close-up, it's a love story, but it's one so fully defined that, as in a long-shot, it also succeeds in dramatizing the events seen on the far horizon - including the political differences between Gandhi, who led the nationalist movement, and Tagore, who, like Nikhil, stood for civilized compromise."

"[11] Roger Ebert noted that the real story of the film takes place within Bimala's heart and mind.

He added: "It is a contemplative movie -- quiet, slow, a series of conversations punctuated by sudden bursts of activity.