SYNOPSIS

If you crossed an Italian neorealist film with a work by Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, the result might be something like Distant Thunder. Satyajit Ray combines a social consciousness in a changing society with a slow narrative style to reveal nuances of character. The relaxed pace allows us to enter the world and experience the internal process and transformation of an individual. Rays films often play on the tension between traditional customs and the effects of urban modernization with a naturalness that has you wondering if his characters are real people or actors.

Soumitra Chatterji as the Brahmin in Distant Thunder is gradually revealed on several levels through his relationship with his wife, students, patients and townspeople. It is the visibility of his internal dialogue and the reassessment of his values and social position amidst the so-called manmade famine of 1943 that structure the movement of the film.

As the Brahmin's authority and stature in the community are rendered inconsequential by a hunger which levels all class distinctions, he is forced to give up the superiority which separates him from the peasants. The course of the film literally flows in and around water. Opposed to the creative spirit expressed through the water imagery is a progression of fire symbols, signs of a burnt-out existence.

Throughout the film we find small forms outlined against a large background until the final climactic and powerful image of a community joined together against a disaster manufactured by an individual act somewhere in the distance.

TECHNICAL DATA

Director: Satyajit Ray
Producer: SEATTLE FILM SOCIETY
Cast: Soumitra Chatterji, Babita.
Music: Satyajit Ray
Script: Satyajit Ray, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay
Runtime: 101 min. Color. Language: Bengali. Spanish Subtitled.