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Satyajit Ray creates a harrowing and compelling portrait of idolatry, obsession, and fanaticism in Devi.

Devi (The Goddess) explores rural Bengali life in 1860. Doyamoyee lives a village with her husband Umaprasad. When her husband goes to Calcutta to educate himself, Doyamoyee takes care of her father-in-law. Asleep one night, he has a vision that his daughter-in-law is the reincarnation of the goddess Kali. Everyone in the village begins to believe Doyamoyee has supreme power, an otherworldly deity that controls their fate. When Umaprasad returns from Calcutta, he's shocked by all this fanaticism. He endeavours to reason with his father but to no avail. Umaprasad wants to escape this madness with his wife, but she is unwilling to leave, as she too believes she is the reincarnation of the goddess Kali...

Devi is a film of consummate greatness. Its simple tale of blind faith springing from organized worship and leading the most vulnerable on a downward spiral into madness is surely a film as relevant now as it was in 1960. Upon its first release it was initially condemned in India for being anti-Hindu.

Director: Satyajit Ray
Cast: Sharmila Tagore, Soumitra Chatterjee, Chhabi Biswas, Karuna Bannerjee, Purnendu Mukherjee, Arpan Chowdhury, Anil Bag, Khagesh Chakravarti, Anil Chatterjee
Country: India
Genre: Drama

BD50 | 1080p AVC | 01:39:21 | 36.2 Gb + 3% rec
Language: Bengali
Subtitles: English

Extras:
• New program featuring interviews with actors Sharmila Tagore and Soumitra Chatterjee, recorded in 2013 (16:20)
• New video essay by film scholar Meheli Sen (17:19)