Director: Chaturbhuj Doshi; Writer: Chaturbhuj Doshi, Pandit Indra; Cinematographer: D.K.Ambre; Cast: Sadhona Bose, Arun, Kamala Chattopadhyay, Brijmala, Bhagwandas, Rajendra, Rewashankar Marwadi, Mahipal
Summary: A dance-based mythological featuring Shankar (Arun), the triad in the Hindu pantheon (sometimes equated with Dionysus), who dances the Tandava, the dance of destruction, when his wife Sati kills herself after she is humiliated by her father. He then retires into meditation from which he has to be awoken to rid the world of the demon Tarakasura. The seductive powers of Sati, reborn as Parvati (Bose), liven up Shankar but she has to pay for this by doing extensive penance, after which she can be accepted again by her husband as a real wife, partly through the divine intervention of Vishnu. The film highlights Bose’s dancing talents but its real interest for contemporary viewers is in the tale’s overtly Oedipal overtones together with its status as a blatant allegory about female sexuality as both a life-restoring force and a potential threat to be brought under control by and for men (including highlighting the function of religion in this process of repression).
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