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The woman one loves is holy, says Dumas, thus Satyajit Ray's warning against worshiping the ground she walks on. "An image in clay" for the opening credits, the visage of Goddess Durga from blank form to painted mask, finally sunk in a river under celebratory fireworks. A family divided, the patriarch (Chhabi Biswas) is a feudal holdover, the son (Soumitra Chatterjee) is "westernized" and off to the big city for English studies. Three divine eyes float to the old man in a dream, the next morning he's on his knees venerating his alarmed daughter-in-law (Sharmila Tagore). "Come behold Goddess Kali in her new likeness!" Dreyer's Ordet is the point of departure, and there's a flash of Day of Wrath in the cries of witchery near the end. The young wife gets no taste of sacred power, just the weight of obedience and confusion, her shrine might be another cage for one of the mansion's rare birds. The miracle is the healing of a street singer's ailing child, it's enough to question escape: "What if I am the Goddess?" (Crowds trekking for blessings are concurrent with La Dolce Vita.) A crossroads of myth and rationalism, the objectification that turns femininity to stone begins at home. Ray's expressiveness of technique is a marvel, with silhouettes used strikingly amid veils and incense smoke—the returning husband sits in the darkened bedroom and listens to the deification rituals outside, the camera dollies in for a distressed close-up until he abruptly gets up and leaves a vacant screen, a servant brings an oil lamp to fill the void. Superstition in changing times, "no stronger medicine." Tall weeds and mist receive the madness at the close, cf. Mizoguchi's Portrait of Madame Yuki. With Karuna Banerjee, Anil Chatterjee, Purnendu Mukherjee, and Arpan Chowdhury. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |