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MovieMail's Review
This third volume of Ray's films shows his tougher political edge, with The Deliverance (1981), The Home and the World (1984) and a reworking of Ibsen's An Enemy of the People (1989).
Satyajit Ray was often accused of ignoring political issues, but this selection proves conclusively otherwise. Although it was made for television, the Hindi featurette The Deliverance (1981) is one of Ray's most devastating films. Following Brahmin Mohan Agashe's shameful treatment of untouchable Om Puri, it is a bold denunciation of India's caste system and the starkness of Soumendhu Roy's photography reinforces the seething despair that underlies the action.
Adapted from a novel by Rabindranath Tagore, The Home and the World (1984) is equally contentious, as it questions the motives of Soumitra Chatterjee, a leader of the swadeshi boycott against foreign-made goods that was launched in the wake of the British decision to partition Bengal in 1905. Like Charulata (1964), this is also a treatise on the status of women, as landlord Victor Banerjee's sheltered wife Swatilekha Chatterjee comes to understand the cynical realities of a divided society by recognising the duplicity of her feted guest.
And the reckless intransigence of the bourgeoisie is further indicted in An Enemy of the People (1989), a Bengali reworking of the play by Henrik Ibsen that Ray shot on studio sets, rather than his usual locations, as he recovered from a heart attack. A study in vested interest and the arrogance of power, it is dominated by a dignified display of dutiful determination by Soumitra Chatterjee (who had played the lead in The World of Apu, 1959), as the doctor risking his reputation to secure the closure of a temple with a contaminated water supply.
Contains Deliverance (1981), The Home and the World (1984) and An Enemy of the People (1989).
Satyajit Ray is internationally acknowledged as one of the great masters of world cinema. This new collection features three more acomplished works. The Public Enemy is an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen's 'An Enemy of the People', The Home and the World sees a woman recalls the events that moulded her perspective on the world, while Deliverance is a look at the differences in the Indian caste system.
