What do you prefer? A happy ending where the two lovers unite after having defeated the villains or convinced their parents? Or the sad one where love cannot exist because the tragic and beautiful story doesn’t permit it? DDLJ or Devdas? KKHH or Fanaa? Many people would of course favour a happy ending, because life is a sad enough tale as it is, so why shouldn’t one dream and unwind at the cinema? Isn’t that what movies are for? We all know films aren’t reality, and most of us are idealists who love to be charmed by beautiful stories where love is not only possible, but victorious, and can last… forever. Besides, movies show us beautiful people in beautiful settings, and what we cannot afford for ourselves is there, on the screen, ready for us to suspend our disbelief, and be lulled by an optimistic tale, full of hope and glory, signifying plenty!

There’s nothing better, isn't there, than being tormented during two and a half hours by doubt and anguish, before finally being given the incredibly relieving possibility that love will happen, and the situation satisfies everyone. We get such a feeling of justice too, when this happens: we know that love is the best and most natural thing that can happen to anyone, and so being denied that fullness is unfair and painful. A good director will enable this type of story to unfold: a realistic difficulty stops happiness from pursuing its quiet glory, and the lovers go through the pangs of bereavement and doubt: the best distances are those that could separate them from each other, the psychological ones, or the moral ones. Of course a family obstacle will do fine, because the conflict of interests generally works very well. And so if two loves oppose one another, you have the perfect entertainer!

Dulhan ek raat ki (The one-night bride, by D.D.Kashyap, 1967) isn’t that, alas! We do have the difficulties, we do have the love, but the events are too overwhelming, and the end is tragic, even if Memsaab thinks (or rather hopes) otherwise! Here’s what she writes, at the end of a very honest description of the film:

“Although to my delight the ending was not quite as dark as the book’s, even if I wouldn’t call it happy. Still, there’s enough ambiguity so that I can pretend.”

So first go to her blog for the story (thanks Greta), and then come back.

You’re done? OK, so let’s get down to business: Thomas Hardy’s Tess is a masterpiece of English literature, and D.D. Kashyap deserves praise for having attempted to adapt it. The question is, then, has he done well to keep it a tragedy, or should he have softened it down? Well, he’s done both! We have one the one hand his overall faithfulness to the original story, with remarkable inventiveness to pass from the XIXth century Wessex environment to mid XXth century Uttar Akhand, and at the same time some completely new elements which introduce a charming comedy spirit that doesn’t disturb the main course of events.

 Johnny Walker is the main ingredient of that dose of comedy. He’s introduced in a very clever (and rare) way: he see him turning his back the camera, and then suddenly without any preparation, he faces us spectators, whereas we didn’t know before we were in the movie! And he delivers us this funny stance about his taking advantage of bachelors’ residences until they get married, and he has then to find another victim! Later he’s the agent of reconciliation between Nirmala and Ashok, or he tries at least, reminding his friend that the young lady is unjustly abandoned, and Ashok gains in humanity, because we understand his sorrow much more easily than we do Angel’s in the novel. In the film, it doesn’t seem that Ashok leaves his beloved for so very long, but Angel actually leaves Tess to sail to South America, and stays there a number of years! She writes to him, and all her letters are unanswered. Desperate, she goes back to the one man who had insisted would look after her in time of need, Alec, her rapist. But Hardy’s book (and Roman Polanski’s film) make it clear that Alec, even if he’s “a bad sort”, remains human, and is genuinely concerned by Tess in his own way. Angel’s wounded manhood on the other hand destroys her. Ashok doesn’t get that treatment, and as a result, perhaps, Dharmendra’s character comes out as more gentle, but a little weak.

The same thing happens to Rehman’s character, Ranjeet, who impersonates Alec. Well, not quite, thanks to the movie’s photographer. Rehman’s brow and jaws are perfectly shadowed (remember his pose during the piano bit “Kai din se di”?) to bring out his sombre purposes, and if he doesn’t achieve much in terms of acting, it doesn’t disturb the movie too much. What it does is it boosts its simple balance of right and wrong, a thing which (am I right?) Indian audiences would prefer. For example, there’s this moment when, at the end of the movie, he tries to explain to a solitary Nirmala that he’s truly reformed, that he needs her, that he’s not really responsible for what has happened that raat… But he doesn’t look at her! And when he does, it’s with a hard and frightening stare. He just recites his text, in a doggedly way that lacks all passion. If he had wanted to prove at least his care for her, wouldn’t he have tried to soften her, to make her pity him? Instead, she finds in his speech a confirmation of his evil ways, and triumphs. Thomas Hardy knew more about human complexity.

 Nutan on the contrary shines through and through (much to the pleasure of the Nutan fan:-)))!!) and not only in the expected forlorn scenes of solitude and dejection. I say expected, because she’s obviously been used by directors in a number of movies where she had to deal with social rejection (see Sujata, Saudagar or Bandini!) In Dulhan ek raat ki, there’s a very moving scene, where she sings Madan Mohan’s “sapno me agar mere”, and one is rapturously watching her painful desire (her foot brushes against the bedstead, a hand strokes the pillow). She’s languidly reclining on the bed, and turns over to reveal her perfect face. The scene is full of wrenching and disturbing yearning; her dark eyes look straight at the camera for a second, and one feels she’s making us sense what’s going on within her breast. In her song, she’s woefully wishing her saajan (her lover) to come in her dreams, so she might sleep: without him, she cannot rest, but should he visit her dreams, she will find comfort and repose. The words are ominous, because we know the ending, and the sleep she’s referring to could anticipate the unfortunate destiny that will befall her. They can also be interpreted in a rather frank sexual way, because of the cruder meaning of “sleeping”. But all this is never shocking: she’s expressing the distress of bereaved love, and everything she says is beautiful and natural.

On the whole her role is a rather grave one, even before the fateful night. Once only is she again the marvel of mirth and happiness which I love so much (see Dilli ka thug, for example): it’s when she arrives at the Nainital “school” where she gets employment as governess. The “headmaster” asks her about her experience, and the mention of children bring on her face the loveliest of expressions:

She then defends their naughtiness, saying it’s really liveliness, and that a home isn’t one without it. This scene doesn’t exist in the book; Tess doesn’t find employment after Angel has left her, that’s why she goes to Alec. Perhaps DD Kashyap introduces this scene out of pity for Tess/Nirmala! There is also a very witty and Nutan-indulging invention, which I hadn’t seen done before: during her stay there, she writes to her mother, telling her that everything is Okay, that she doesn’t need to worry any more about her. As is common, we hear her voice when Maa reads, but we get a whooper: Nutan herself, on her bed in her room, speaking the words which her mother is reading back home! Now that’s good, because the scene supposes that she had been meditating the words, and memorised them perhaps, before writing them down, showing us her tender love for her mother. It’s also a way to enjoy her beauty once more, as she experiences that delicate feeling.

Talking of art and beauty, the dramatic night scene where the catastrophe happens deserves a word. Rehman and Nutan are side by side in the car, he’s impassively taking away from home, and the moonlight passes on their faces, overshadowed now and then by darkness. Nutan’s face is rimmed by a spectacular oval of classic beauty, where her black features stand out in striking contrast. She’s tense, and then angry when she realises he’s taking her out of her way, but it’s too late, we see him clutching her arm, she pulls it away, banging it on the window (and losing the bangle which Ashok had asked her to keep to remember him by), and then we see but one picture:

 It lasts two seconds, perhaps, or two seconds and a half, and we understand that this distraught face is after; this is much more powerful than what we see in Polanski’s film, where the rape is practically shown. The blank in the narration here (and the dishevelled hair striping her eyes like whips) evokes the gaping hole in her life which this night will leave forever in her, and one is left to ponder about the meaning of all this. In today’s society (at least in the West), women would tend to heal part of such a trauma thanks to a lawsuit and condemnation of the rapist. But are we right to give such an importance to virginity? Or can we avoid giving it all that importance? Thomas Hardy’s Tess clearly denounces such a male-oriented emphasis. Of course we’re talking about rape here, not the loss of virginity. But in fact the story is an exploration of the social and psychological impact of this loss. Tess/Nirmala is raped, but it is shown (socially) to be as bad as if she’d been consenting. As it is, she suffers double, that’s all. But perhaps if virginity hadn’t been so essential in the culture of the time, she would have suffered only from the violence of the rape, and not from the factual loss of her virginity.

Nevertheless the Indian version of the movie seems to insist on the importance of virginity too. Ashok even hints Nirmala could have stopped working at Ranjeet’s place once she had felt his interest for her. Women are attracted to such men he says. I don’t quite know what to think about this! And the movie’s end, Nirmala blames the “powers” above which, as in Greek tragedies, play with simple mortals (cf. Shakespeare’s King Lear, act IV, sc 1) and “kill them for their sport”. But we know that such powers have a human face, the face of ignorance and bigotry, which turn women into the victims of their sex, which jealous men want to possess more than enjoy and protect.

One has to look at the position of men too, and even if today, the value traditionally given to virginity is more limited in secular societies, because of the freedom given to women, such places are an exception in the world, and we cannot affirm, I think, that all societies that cherish virginity are systematically male-dominated ones. There is something to say for the deeply rooted need of a man to be the sole “owner” of his wife, and Ashok’s reaction is therefore understandable, even if he knows that Nirmala is innocent. In Thomas Hardy’s original story, the reaction takes a cruel turn which is excessive, but it seems that Ashok suffers not unjustifiably.

To come back to my question at the beginning, is Dulhan ek raat ki more artistically satisfying because it’s a tragedy (it is a tragedy, cf. the numerous references to kismet, fate), or could one have changed the end and make the lovers unite somehow? Difficult, huh? Aren’t love stories “greater” if they contain some elements of sadness? Of course, if the end is sad, or even tragic, the whole movie is tainted by it. But I know of a movie which has succeeded the tour de force of including the ingredient of sadness and yet avoid making the spectator feel he’s been cheated: it’s Veer-Zaara. Yash Chopra has created a love-story in which the experience of loss and sadness weighs down the general impression, and yet the lovers reunite in the end in spite of all the difficulties, and the relief and wonder at the truth of love is all the stronger because they have been deprived of their youth, which is the magic and memory of love. Yet love happens, it is given to them, and not denied them. And somehow, through love (it’s the meaning of that last song-scene, “Tere liye” in which we see the two old lovers become young again), they regain a youth which is like an eternity!

In Dulhan ek raat ki, on the other hand, as in Devdas and other sad-ending movies, the beauty has to come from somewhere else, and that somewhere is perhaps the certainty that love is stronger than death, that it triumphs over death precisely because it fights against it (and sometimes it rushes towards it) so impetuously. Love has something to do with death, in its absoluteness: that’s the “solution” to tragic romances. And real (classic) romanticism is always connected to death. Today people would call such movies as Tess unromantic, because of the drama contained in it. If it doesn’t enable love to flourish, it isn’t “romantic”. But the true meaning of “romantic” is passionate until death. True love contains an excess, a sense of sacrifice, and a rebellion against the limits of our human condition which is best shown in tragedy. Romantic comedies can be beautiful and satisfying, but artistically, romantic dramas can explore this dimension better.

One last remark concerning the incredibly rich and plentiful musical score: I sometimes felt that the film contained more music than talking! The songs aren’t all standard length, too, which creates a very pleasant and free relationship to the genre. It’s as if the film-maker had mastered the necessity of giving songs to his spectators, and knew how best to surprise them by offering them “classic” pieces (yet always beautifully blended in the storyline) and then unexpected extras that spring out of his inspiration when we don’t expect them. 

I decided I would follow Astia’s remark, expressed in a recent commentary on Love aaj kal, which suggested I should review some more recent BW issues than Nutan and Bimal Roy. So as I’m of an obliging nature, I dutifully pored again in that cardboard box of mine to see what was inside, and decided I would blow the dust off that much eulogised multi-starrer which dates back *only* to 2007!! Is that recent enough?

Ah well, it’s true that my choice was a little rascally… You see I like Miss Deepika’s looks, and I was ready to go through the two hour-long potential ordeal with this little life-saver. BUT… If I did reach the other side safe and sound, I can’t say I didn’t drown now and then. Or was it the movie that had sunk somewhere in the crossing? Yes, that’s it: OSO sank back there in the stream, unable to float on its own, and even Deeps’ clever shiny eyes were unable to salvage it. (To say the truth, there was some flotsam, but we’ll see that later!)

Let me put it bluntly: I prefer when Farah Khan (great thing about blogs… you can actually say that sort of thing openly) doesn’t direct. I don’t mind her as choreographer: but why did she decide to swap roles? Main hoon na I didn’t really like either (what a grumpy character, ts), thought it was a waste of time, and I’m always uneasy with spoofs. Well, it depends, really (so you see, it depends). But Om Shanti Om is either too full, or too empty. Too full of its own worthiness, self-celebration and all that, too empty of any real purpose, any reality. Yet spoofing does just that, I suppose, putting reality at a distance. But what if the spoofing achieves nothing? You know, if I’d been on the sets, I would have tried scratching some of these characters, to see what’s under the surface. Or poking them, to check their balance (I know, that’s impolite and juvenile).

One question left: HOW MUCH did Shahrukh get paid to have to show that much stretched skin? HOW MUCH did he need? The silly pun on OK was okay, but WHY on earth did the directress need to pad her flick with ALL (nearly all, don't exaggerate) those BW faces? That trick has already been done how many times? Yeah I know that feelgood impression that overcomes you when you see your favourite stars all bunched up together. But wasn’t it a little too much? When BW looks down at its navel, what does it see? Last venom spittle: does one turn to the past when one cannot deal with the present? (That’s your case, dude. And besides, you know you're a sucker for nostalgic things).

  People’s criticism apparently centred on the lack of a plot… I wonder why they say that? There is a plot: a shy young junior actor falls in love with a beautiful movie actress back in the 1970s, and she notices him (joy!), but is married (so…) to a baad guy (ugh!) who doesn’t want to let her breathe and have her baby. He brings her to a splendid hall, where he pretends he’s changed, and they will get married, but then he shuts her up and burns the place down with her inside! Om (that shy guy from the beginning) sees her and tries to save her, but is hit by thugs and crumbles to the ground. 30 years later, the same but oddly different Om appears from nowhere (in fact he’s reincarnated) and decides to nail the baad Arjun, but it’s hard to do, because he doesn’t want to get nailed. So he tries hard to confront him with his past, and make him admit what he’s done to his beloved. We know the story has to finish well, so how is it going to finish? Well, that’s where there’s a good trick: the dead actress’s ghost comes to the rescue, and reveals where her corpse is hidden! Justice is finally done. And Om gets to stay with the gorgeous pair of eyes!!

I’ve allowed myself to laugh at this plot a little, but why was it considered so bad? There are hundreds of worse plots in BW movies. This one, reincarnation, arson, spooky spoofs and the rest of it, isn’t that bad. No, what’s bad is that there’s no acting, the characters are SHALLOW and EMPTY (Halloooo? Is there anybody in there?), and too much complacency makes me sick (oh now come on, just… let them be).

So, what will I like remembering from Om Shanti Om? That moment when Shanti’s eyes cry upon leaving the scene, and climbing the stairs?  And “Main Agar Kahoon”: one great song, with splendid picturisation (especially the love-bubble, with the puppets-actors fade-in). And the credits at the end, which were a fun way of finishing a movie. (I prefer that!)

 Anupama, by Hrishikesh Mukherjee, centres around the character of Uma (Sharmila Tagore), a shy and silent girl, sole daughter of a cruel father (Tarun Bose) who lost this beloved wife when she gave birth to this daughter. He blamed her for the death of his wife, and has got stuck in this absurd hatred which has permanently traumatised Uma. But around this centre revolves other characters, especially Ashok (Dharmendra), the young teacher-poet who will open her up to herself and to love. Of course he will be attracted to her, to her mystery and her beauty, and the quintessential scene of revelation is one that takes place on a wooded hillside, to the tune of Kuch dil ne kaha:

Now for me this song is the origin of my fascination with this movie. It was Pitu (here) who first allowed me to realize that such a gem existed! Later she sent me the translation for the song (sung by Lata, written by Kaifi Azmi, Shabana Azmi’s father, and music by Hemant Kumar) and added these words for me: “I LOVE this song because the lyrics and the picturisation are so.... fey. Fey is the only word, I feel like the Queen of Fairies is going to alight any moment. It's such a haunting song, and the way the song is sung by Lata Mangeshkar, she drops her voice to a whisper at times. The fog in the video, the wildflowers, these lyrics, they really have a gossamer quality to it, illusory almost.” (The song says at one stage: Palkon ki thandi sej par sapno ki pariyaan soti hain - On the cool bed of the eyelashes, the dream-fairies slumber) So thanks Pitu, and a 1000 more thanks.

But what is really Ashok watching? Wherein does the mysterious charm of this song lie? In the clarity of early morning, Ashok walks out of the house towards the wooded hillside. A few yards down, Uma is singing and he stops to watch and listen. But what he's witnessing is really the birth of music, in its pristine powerful magic. Because the girl who couldn’t talk has become, chrysalis-like, the source of the most wonderful song. This metamorphosis of silence into song is the very definition of poetry. You can see all this on Dharmendra’s face, much more, I think, than on Sharmila’s. She is beautiful, and the photographer (full credits to Jaywant Pathare for his fantastic job) captures her slow exquisite charm for us to contemplate. Yet, I still prefer (and I’m a man!) Dharmendra’s gaze in the scene. First I quite recognize why somebody like Daddy’s girl could actually entitle her blog “In praise of all things Dharmendra-related” – crazy title, but quite understandable! Then one has to say that Dharm has that full persona which some actors cannot completely hide, and that betray them at times: they’re themselves slightly more than the characters they’re supposed to impersonate. In Anupama, you can notice this slight unease in the scene when he has to sing in  half-darkness:

This scene is important because it functions as a parallel scene to the hillside one described above. It takes place at a family meeting for Annie’s birthday. Annie (Shashikala) is the exasperatingly bubbly daughter of one of Uma’s father’s friends. Until now, she’s done nothing but exaggerate the “girlie” tricks which will serve as a backdrop for what’s going to happen during that song. Ashok arrives late, and as a compensation is asked to recite a poem, which he reluctantly accepts to do, saying that he will probably spoil the party's cheerful mood. Annie lowers the lights, and he starts his grave and rather embarrassed song. But as he sings, Annie is transformed (above). She’s getting engaged with another guy, Arun, but clearly Ashok is doing something to her, and I think it’s the emotionality of poetic suggestiveness that penetrates her, and makes her pass from the superficial person she used to be to the sensible grown-up she becomes later. It seems that thanks to what she has felt during that moment of poetry, Annie  has matured. She is now the friend whose influence will help the two lovers meet and be strong enough to brave M. Sharma, Uma’s formidable father. She’s now the woman who reminds Ashok that beautiful philosophies can always be changed, that life isn’t worth being lived if one can’t love (pic below on the right).

So one could say that Ashok, having heard the enlightening Word coming from Uma’s silence, has become the prophet who is now able to awaken listeners to the essence of their own being. Uma’s Song of love, entering Ashok’s soul, is transmuted into poetry, and silences Annie the chatterbox who from now on will listen instead, and change her general demeanour into that of a sensitive young woman.

What does a prophet do? He communicates with the divinity, and translates the divine inspirations into human language. If the hearts of his listeners are open, they can then free themselves from the alienating instincts and passions, and reach a state of serenity where their souls are at peace. They are no longer the victims of fear, of violence or greed, but on the contrary theirs are the quiet minds of the good and the holy. In all religions, we have this striving for a spiritualised state where man is  master of himself and lives on friendly terms with the world around him.

This is what happens to Uma: first a prisoner in her father’s house, shut up in shock and fear and guilt, speechless because communication means a socialisation which is denied her, she will slowly (helped by Ashok) open up to the realisation that her enemy is as much within her as outside her, and that she has to vanquish the demons that are keeping her imprisoned against her will. The theme of communication plays an important role in the movie, the emphasis on the telephone, especially, is there to dramatize the difficulties of passing from silence to speech, from imprisonment to freedom.

What’s interesting is that this theme concerns other people, most notably Uma’s father, who is also imprisoned in his hatred, and incapable of freeing himself without help. It will be again Ashok’s duty to make him see that he, the rich and superior businessman, is the one who needs help. There’s a very good scene, in which Dharmendra comes out shining: his friend Arun, first promised to Uma, had gone to M. Sharma to try and tell him of the fact that he’s in love with Anita (Annie), but had failed to admit it, and so had to find a pretext for his visit: his friend Ashok is without work, could M. Sharma find him a position? Uma’s father  accepts, and summons the poet. He tells him he accepts to give him that job, but that Ashok will have to leave his self-respect at the door, because in such jobs competition is fierce, and people move up by flattering and fawning. Naturally Ashok refuses and delivers the old man a lesson, leaving him angry and stunned.

We have another “prophet” in the group of friends, a great character: Moses, whom Uma considers as her uncle (whatever his status really is). He's a lawyer by trade, but also a born comedian, and he acts as the jolly clown, always telling funny stories and performing crazy pranks. Clearly he’s Sharma’s opposite; he understands human aspirations, and his task is to mend relationships and suggest solutions to problems between people. Once Arun and Annie come to see him to get some advice about their union. Arun tells them of the difficulties of his being promised to Uma whereas he loves Annie. He’s fallen in love with the wrong girl. But this is Moses’ magnificent answer:

That an old man should think so highly of love, as opposed to arranged unions and preordained social ties is like a prophecy, a divine intervention: Moses asserts the rights of nature, of the goodness of humanity created in God’s image, made to experience love which flows from the heart and reverberates on the whole body. Moses of course is also the name of the liberator of Israel, the one chosen by God to free the chosen People, and lead them out of the land of slavery to the promised land of milk and honey. Thus both Moses and Ashok represent the choice of natural reason and unfettered feelings as the foundations of civilisation, as opposed to the forces of self-interest and social alienation. Ashok the poor poet and teacher, Moses the wise and merry visionary: two heroes whose combined efforts unite to wrench youth and beauty away from the shackles of envy and “mind-forged manacles” (W. Blake). 

In the end, in a move one might liken to a divinely-provoked Exodus (y’all remember “Let my people go”?), Uma reads the book Ashok has written, called “Anupama” (The Nonesuch), which tells her to leave her old life, and crosses the Dead Sea of her father’s rage, who unwittingly is turned into Pharaoh:

Led by Moses, she walks towards the Promised Land where the Word has called her since the beginning. This is a clever parallel, drawn between situation of women as the oppressed class in Indian society, and the Hebrews led out of slavery. Anupama also contains many wonderful moments which I haven’t mentioned in this brief review, and I wouldn’t like to close before pointing out the feminine grace of Uma’s mother (played by Surekha), as well as that of her foster-mother, Sarla (Dulari), and this surrogate mother is another reference to Moses’ story: seen from this angle, Uma becomes the one saved from the waters and the saviour of her people. I believe this is a fit message for Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s movie: that the one who has been so ruthlessly punished and abandoned as a child should turn into a source of deliverance and freedom for all.

Just before I finish: a fun take on the movie may be found here (Bollyviewer) She also mentions a valuable review from stardust.

Ashani Sanket, shot by Satyajit Ray in 1973 is again one of those movies people lift to the skies, but for which you have to wonder why what they find so important or interesting in it is so vague and general. Just saying things like “a scathing indictment of the 1943 government-orchestrated famine” doesn’t really underline its artistic value… It’s classified in The New York Times 1000 best films ever, not that that means very much, mind you. Other critics I’ve read here and there contend that Ray’s films are on the whole too slow, and lack “inventive” plots. And even if I’m an admirer of Ray’s works, as you shall see below, I agree with these criticisms. Only for me they aren’t negative. They’re part of Ray’s art.

What struck me, in Distant thunder, was what I’d call its emptiness. And yet a lot happens! Judge for yourself: a young couple of childless Brahmins (Gangacharan and his wife Ananga), who arrive in Bengali village as welcome additions to its community, are confronted like everybody else to the 1943 war-caused starvation in which we are told 5 million people died. They don’t farm and therefore depend on others giving them food; and their status indeed helps them to escape the worst. Ananga stays at home while her “Pandit” husband is busy at the school he’s started. He’s also taken up the tasks of village priest and community doctor, and we understand that in fact he’s not quite as erudite as he puts on. But this is never uncovered, except perhaps when, during the rice riot, famished villagers have crowded around a distribution point, lose their patience and grab the food, resulting in the dignified pandit being pushed aside and falling on the ground. We wonder at that moment whether his knowledge is not symbolically being thrown overboard, and if he won’t be exposed as impostor.

Ananga befriends some women neighbours, among which Chutki, a spirited survivor of the cholera epidemic which afflicted the region a few years before. She’s the one who defends her Brahmin friend from the assault of a “hungry” unknown man (whose face we don’t see) who takes advantage that she had lagged behind the other women to assault her and try to rape her. But Chutki lets herself “eaten” by another hungry one: a horridly scarred man (a firework blew up in his face) who lives near the brick kiln, outside the village, and who has managed to hoard some rice, which he will give her in exchange for her charms. She accepts, hunger being too strong. Eventually, she will leave her husband, and elope to Calcutta with her “survivor”. 

Last event which occurs during those harrowing times: the arrival at the Brahmin couple’s house of visitors, first Moti, an untouchable friend of Ananga’s, who will come back at the end, dying, and which they’ll decide to bury, breaching the no-touch code in a surprising gesture of generosity, and then the fellow Brahmin visitor whom they first suspect of parasitism, and send away, but which Ananga asks her husband to call back, and sleeps at their home. Generosity again, that will materialise in his whole family coming to them in the end, thus multiplying their household five times! 

But all these events are completely non-spectacular; and belong very much to the course of human realities. One almost might say they’re determined to happen the way they do. Confronted to such plights, the way these people react seems almost predictable: as food becomes scarce, they start fighting for it, their survival instincts become sharper, they develop protectionist attitudes and other forms of deregulated types of behaviour. Things occur which periods of plenty normally prevent, for instance the emotional blackmail that Jadu, the scarred “monster” from the brick kiln tries with Chutki: she’ll have rice if she “comes with him”.

All this is seemingly underlined by the views of the eternal, wonderful nature which is filmed by a loving camera: the ducks on the water, the huge trees against the evening sky, the fluttering butterflies delicately poised on the mud. One is irresistibly reminded of Pather panchali and its still life poetic creativity. Ray said that he had wanted to film this luxuriant nature in colours, and not B & W, because he wanted to underline the contrast between what men can do to themselves and how splendid Nature remained all the while.

So this is the “emptiness” which I had alluded to: a smooth, even narration which never surprises or shocks – it would have been so easy to have been violent and graphic, with death and rape on the agenda. Instead, the film unfolds calmly, sensuously, richly evocative of realities which belong to a sort of eternal natural cycle. Even the 1943 famine strikes as part of the normal course of destiny, and a greater frame of harmony and life encircles it all. People have strong feelings: love, ambition, yearning, frustration, anger, and a good deal of hidden intentions show a complexity of relationships which prove we are in the presence of a very real community. But everything is shown from within this emptiness, or perhaps this fullness (it’s the same thing) where one wonders if man is actually free.

The miracle is that he is. At several key moments, Ganga and his wife display a generosity and a sense of adaptation to circumstances which make them charter new human grounds. Their sense of solidarity goes far beyond what one would expect of hospitality, even in troubled times. Ananga pleads with her husband to accept the Brahmin beggar at their home in spite of Ganga’s distrust and displeasure. Ganga’s decision to leave aside his ritualistic distance from labour and untouchables is blown to bits when he asks Ananga if she doesn’t mind him burying Moti’s dead body, and of course when Ananga tells him she’s finally pregnant (that glorious, gorgeous face of hers at that moment, see below) contains a confidence and a hope which builds the foundation for the future of humanity. Who said Distant thunder was a pessimistic film?

What’s great is that all this happens with only half-virtuous characters. Ananga is flawless, but rather underexploited, but Gangachara (Soumitra Chatterjee, BTW), as we have seen, could almost be an anti-hero. That is where Ray’s art shows itself: these characters represent humanity all the better, and in a mysterious way, I’d say Chutki the murderer and adulteress, Jadu the monster, Biswas (the village elder) and his pathetic attempts to hide his rice: all of them belong to a redeemed humanity, just because they are men and women thrown on the surface of this planet and loved for what they are. What proves this for me is Ray’s particular interest in the sensuality of his world: he starts with the women, of course (that opening scene where Ananga’s hand caresses the water in and out; Chutki’s dazzling red sari, Ananga’s oval head-gear…), but everything else is seen through a creator’s ravished eyes: the rice which Ganga fingers in close-up is mouth-wateringly delicious; the light that covers the village in afternoon gold, the strand of hair on Moti’s dead face, or the burnished bronze of the poor Brahmin’s skin, as he lies on the porch, that night of his retrieved dignity. Even Jadu’s face radiates a sort of charm, when we get used to it: he is no monster, just a frightening appearance.

 The fact that Satyajit Ray doesn’t use his film to condemn anyone or anything (something which apparently people thought he was doing, precisely, and which explains the film’s bad acclaim in 1973) turns it into a meditative portrait of a tolerant and benevolent India where men and women do not need to strive hard to become more human: they are redeemed by the compassion of an artist who defends them whatever their failings and limitations. The distant thunder is heard, but protected as they are, they cannot be struck by its lightning.