Excellent film. Captures the essence of religious superstition verses spirituality. Shot in glorious black and white the film is essentially about a 17 year old bride ( played by Sharmila Tagore)whose atheist husband goes away for further studies leaving her with his family in a rural town in Bengal. Her devout father-in-law, who is an ardent worshipper of the goddess Kali, has a vision that his daughter-in-law is actually an incarnation of the goddess. The devoted daughter-in-law, initially, plays along for the fear of hurting his feelings but as the movie progresses she gets caught up in the ritualistic practices and starts to believe that she is actually the goddesses incarnate. I have actually seen things like that happen and I think Ray captured the mass hysteria of an entire town very well. The struggle between the son who is a spiritual man but is not superstious and his father is well portrayed. Over all an excellent film, not on par with the Apu trilogy however.
Review of The Goddess
