Devi (1960)
Directed by Satyajit Ray

Film Review

The darkest and most controversial of Satyajit Ray's films, Devi powerfully evokes the fallacy of blind faith and shows the disastrous consequences that may ensue from an overzealous, uncritical adherence to a belief system.  At the time of its release, the film was condemned in Ray's native India as a flagrant attack on Hinduism, which it manifestly is not, although it is easy to read an anti-religion subtext into the film.  It is not Hinduism (or indeed any religion) that Devi attacks, but rather that capacity which many believers have for wilful self-delusion - seeing signs that are not really, being too willing to seek material manifestations of a divine influence.  With striking visual power but extraordinary narrative economy, Devi shows what can go wrong when faith becomes subservient to superstition in a society that is degenerating into decadence and spiritually barren self-interest.  Considered one of Ray's most important films, it was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1962.

Devi also provides a stark commentary on the way in which women in Indian society have been repressed and controlled by social and religious conventions for generations.  At the time the film was made, feminism was beginning to have an impact in India (more noticeably in the workplace than at home) and Ray would return to the subject of female repression, more overtly, in many of his subsequent films, most notably Mahanagar (1963) and Charulata (1964).  Doyamoyee, the main character in Devi, is an extreme representation of a woman who has no control over her destiny but must allow herself to fashioned (literally transformed into a goddess) by the most influential male of her household (here, her stepfather).  So compliant is Doyamoyee to what is required of her that, in the end, she herself believes in her divinity - her own will and personality have been totally negated.  Doyamoyee's sense of confinement and her total lack of freedom are emphasised by the film's unremitting sense of oppression, which is conveyed by the moody chiaroscuro photography and the confined setting, which, seen from her perspective more resembles a prison than a home.  The gradual erosion of the young woman's identity and her humiliating subjugation (which mirrors the dressing up of a stone statue of the goddess in the opening credits) is one of the most profoundly disturbing installments in Satyajit Ray's entire oeuvre.

Coming immediately after the third instalment of the acclaimed Apu Trilogy (the series of films that established Ray's international reputation), Devi represents a dramatic change in style and subject matter for the director.  The striking naturalism of Ray's previous near-autobiographical films is far less evident here and the tone is much darker, with no trace of the humour and humanity that lightens these early films.  Devi is a far more introspective and contemplative work, one that takes us into the darker places of the human soul, where the boundary between reason and fanaticism is hopelessly muddled and the central protagonists succumb to a kind of collective insanity, blinded by their selfish desires to the extent that they can no longer judge where faith ends and where wishful thinking takes over.  It is telling that whilst there is one rational person in the household (Doyamoyee's educated husband Umaprasad), even he lacks the authority and the self-belief to challenge the insane delusion that has taken hold of his family, like a malignant illness.  A chilling exploration of how faith can be subverted for purely selfish ends, Devi is one of Ray's bleakest and most hauntingly lyrical films, and it continues to have a powerful resonance more than half a century after it was made.

Film Synopsis

The setting is Chandipur, rural Bengal, India.  The year is 1860.   The aged widower Kalikinkar Roy lives in a grand house with his two sons and their wives.  A faithful servant of the Hindu goddess Kali, Roy has a dream in which it is revealed to him that his daughter-in-law Doyamoyee is the reincarnation of Kali.  With her husband Umaprasad away from home pursuing his studies, Doyamoyee is unable to refute Roy's claims of her divinity and she becomes a living deity.  People come from far and wide to worship her and take her blessings.   Proof of her divinity comes when a sick child placed in her hands suddenly regains consciousness.  On his return, Umaprasad is appalled at the fate that has befallen his wife.  Dismissing Roy's claims as hysterical delusion, he attempts to run away with Doyamoyee, but in vain.  Convinced of her divinity, Doyamoyee knows that she must return to Roy and fulfil her destiny.  But when Doyamoyee fails to cure his stricken grandson, Roy loses his faith in her...