(1960)
4.5
Tom Vick
Devi is one of Satyajit Ray's most powerful explorations of the collision between modernity and traditional Indian life. Chhabi Biswas plays Kalikinkar Roy, a rural land baron who becomes convinced that his young teenage daughter, Doya (Sharmila Tagore), is the reincarnation of the fearsome Hindu goddess Kali, and forces her to sit silently, day after day, on a platform on his front porch so the local villagers can worship her. Ray, ever the humanist, emphasizes the toll Roy's madness takes on the fragile psyche of his daughter. And Tagore, a teenager herself performing in only her second film (the first was Ray's Apur Sansar), brilliantly conveys the mental and physical fatigue Doya suffers as she tries to decide if she really believes she's the goddess everyone around her tells her she is. In a film full of moving scenes, perhaps the most memorable is the one in which Doya's husband, university student Uma (Soumitra Chatterjee), returns home to find his wife stranded on her pedestal, unable to speak to him and surrounded by adoring villagers. Their silent exchange of expressions conveys all of the confusion, longing, and anger each of them feels. Uma, who regards Roy as a fool, causes a rift in the household, making Doya a pawn in the battle between Uma's rationalism and Roy's fanaticism. The film depicts the deep religious beliefs of Roy and his family with respect, but it's also clear that Ray's own beliefs most resemble Uma's (Chatterjee's characters in Ray's films often function as surrogates for the director), but his sympathies lie, above all, with the tragically conflicted Doya.
cast-crew for Devi on AllMovie
Devi (1960)
