DISTANT THUNDER Movie Review

Ashani Sanket

In a remote Bengali village, Gangacharan (Soumitra Chatterjee) is a well-respected Brahmin who serves many functions: priest, physician, schoolteacher, and general spiritual leader. But it is 1942, and World War II will soon affect even the most remote reaches of the globe, causing panic, profiteering, and inflation, and this will cause even the carefully structured, privileged world of Ganga to face the realities of hatred, division, and famine. One of the least-seen of Ray's major films, Distant Thunder is a quietly devastating portrait of a society being tested by the most horrifying of human tragedies. Photographed in rich, dark colors that bring the landscapes to life with an almost shocking vividness, Distant Thunder's physical beauty serves as a staggeringly beautiful but mocking counterpoint to its portrait of large-scale human tragedy.

NEXT STOP … The Music Room, Mahanagar, Days and Nights in the Forest

1973 92m/C IN Soumitra Chatterjee, Sandhya Roy, Babita, Gobinda Chakravarty, Romesh Mukerji; D: Satyajit Ray; W: Satyajit Ray; C: Soumendu Roy; M: Satyajit Ray. Berlin International Film Festival '73: Golden Berlin Bear. VHS FCT