Sadgati (1981)
Cast: Om Puri, Smita Patil, Mohan Agashe
Director: Satyajit Ray
Country: India
Genre: Drama
Official Site: Here
Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage for TIFF’s The Sun and the Moon: The Films of Satyajit Ray. For more information on upcoming TIFF film series visit http://tiff.net and follow TIFF on Twitter at @TIFF_NET.
A troubling fable on the problems of an unbending caste society, Sadgati finds Satyajit Ray as a steadfast voice of social conscientiousness twenty-six years after the release of his first film. Shot with a color pallet of earthy hues and harkening to the sounds of rural life, this unassuming cinematic gem percolates with understated power before culminating in a rolling boil of caustic social commentary on the savage inequities and dehumanizing effects of rigid caste systems. Ray borrows a few cinematic flourishes in deliberate homage to his own heroes, but the film largely unfolds with an economy of style and story that only a true master of the medium could make seem effortless.
A troubling fable on the problems of an unbending caste society, Sadgati finds Satyajit Ray as a steadfast voice of social conscientiousness twenty-six years after the release of his first film.
We follow a simple villager as he prepares for the arrival of a Brahmin, a religious leader who would choose the most auspicious date for the marriage of the villager’s daughter. His modest fineries leave him little to offer to a man of the Brahmin’s stature, but he labors over the details as he has one daughter collect leaves to act as dinner service for the priest’s arrival and another the accoutrements that will constitute the modest but affectionately prepared feast. Ray listens attentively to the sounds of the acolytes and watches their humble toiling affectionately as they use old methods and simple tools appropriate to their low station and contrasts their efforts with the lazy privilege of the “holy” Brahmin as he apathetically fans himself, gut hanging over his waist as he ignores the would-be father of the bride and takes his kowtowing and free labor for granted.
It combines a subdued poeticism with an undercurrent of indignation in a way that only a wizened master of the medium could effectively fuse and remains a powerful fable on the dangers of unquestioning piety.
A subtle nod to Sergei Eisenstein comes in the form of a forced perspective shot of the Brahmin looming over the unappreciated acolyte like Ivan the Terrible watching over his caravan of denizens, a shot that succinctly illustrates the disparate worlds these two men occupy despite their close proximity. They speak the same language, have the same basic needs, and laugh and love in the same way; but outmoded rules passed down from bygone eras dictate that one is inherently superior to the other for reasons neither of them truly understand or think to question. The Brahmin can task the acolyte with a futile undertaking such as chopping petrified wood with a rusty axe and only chastise him for laziness when it inevitably doesn’t work, but the acolyte’s toiling only serves to substantiate the illusory power of the Brahmin as the villager works himself to death for the sake of a man who sees him as a mere commodity.
Sadgati reveals the conscientiousness of the filmmaker’s soul as he wails upon the petrified policies of his home country with a blunted hatchet with little hope of yielding fuel to incite the inner fires of those in the position to enact social change. It combines a subdued poeticism with an undercurrent of indignation in a way that only a wizened master of the medium could effectively fuse and remains a powerful fable on the dangers of unquestioning piety.
Sadgati reveals the conscientiousness of the filmmaker's soul as he wails upon the petrified policies of his home country with a blunted hatchet with little hope of yielding fuel to incite the inner fires of those in the position to enact social change.
