Director: Satyajit Ray; Writer: Satyajit Ray, Henrik Ibsen; Producer: Ravi Malik; Cinematographer: Barun Raha; Editor: Dulal Dutta; Cast: Soumitra Chatterjee, Ruma Guha- Thakurta, Mamata Shankar, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Dipankar Dey, Subhendu Chatterjee, Manoj Mitra, Vishwa Guha- Thakurta, Rajaram Yagnik, Satya Bannerjee, Gobinda Mukherjee
Duration: 01:39:36; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 5.814; Saturation: 0.125; Lightness: 0.297; Volume: 0.078; Cuts per Minute: 6.475; Words per Minute: 72.307
Summary: Having suffered a heart attack, Ray returned to
cinema, extensively assisted by his son
Sandeep, with a short documentary on his
father, Sukumar Ray (1987), and with this first
of three features set in contemporary Bengal,
addressing, like his earlier trilogy, the theme of
corruption. For his first contemporary story
since Jana Aranya (1975), Ray transposes the
Ibsen play into the story of Dr Ashok Gupta
(Soumitra Chatterjee) who protests when the
holy water in a temple turns out to be
contaminated by bad plumbing and produces a
jaundice epidemic. The doctor meets with
powerful opposition from the temple trustees
and the villagers. The plot device of making the
holy water in a temple the cause of disease
evoked the rise of the Hindu religious right
wing in Indian politics. The film is shot
predominantly in close-ups and mid-shots and
seems to bear the stamp of Ray’s continuing ill
health.
Indiancine.ma requires JavaScript.
