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Friday, April 7, 2023

DEVI / THE GODDESS (1960)

Near faultless filmmaking from Satyajit Ray, made directly after his famous Apu Trilogy*, also with Soumitra Chatterjee and Sharmila Tagore as a young married couple, but here in a period piece; late 1800s.  Extrapolated from a short story by Prabhat Kumar Mukherjee, we see trouble rising not long after the husband heads to Calcutta to complete university exams.  He’s from a legacy household, wealthy enough to not work, but with modern ideas.  And it’s during this absence that disaster strikes when his fanatically religious father thinks his prayers have been answered in a dream that reveals his very young daughter-in-law as the incarnation of the three-eyed goddess ‘Kali,’ spiritually divine healer.  The young bride, too reserved to protest and deathly afraid of the dream being true, can only watch helplessly as catastrophe strikes not from a failure, but thru success when she’s held responsible for the recovery of an ill (possibly dead) Beggar’s grandson.  By the time the husband returns, called home by a jealous sister-in-law (his wife neither reads nor writes), the situation is out of control.  And when a favorite nephew, the sister-in-law’s young boy, takes ill, the power of faith in ‘Devi’ gets put to the test.  Ray is in complete control here.  (Regular cinematographer Subrata Mitras; superb score from Ali Akbar Khan.)  The film a masterclass in casting and pace, with compositional dividing elements within the frame altering perception of aspect ratio vertically & horizontally, while character placement within the frame or thru height & angles comment on action and family dynamics.  None this ever coming between the story and the viewer, only felt emotionally.  Ultimately, the film is both mysterious and quietly devastating.  With his APU debut films and THE MUSIC ROOM coming before, THREE DAUGHTERS out next, Ray must never have heard about sophomore slump.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Well, more like a quadruple-bill adding on the three APU films: PATHER PANCHALI/’55; APARAJITO/’56; THE WORLD OF APU/’59.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/aparajito-1956.html  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/world-of-apu-1959.html

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