Wednesday | November 17, 2004 9:00 pm

Devi

Screening on Film

Directed by Satyajit Ray.
With Chhabi Biswas, Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmila Tagore.
India, 1960, 35mm, black & white, 93 min.
Bengali with English subtitles.

A carefully nuanced study in religious obsession, Ray's film centers on Biswas, a man convinced that his young daughter-in-law Tagore is in fact the goddess Kali reincarnated. Baroque and melodramatic, both in terms of its images and its story, it mounts a lucid and very moving argument against the destructive nature of fanaticism and superstition, as Tagore gradually loses all sense of her own individuality. The film is full of striking images and provides intriguing glimpses into religious fervor on the sub-continent.