The Devi:: Significantly Less than 1 Dimension: Chapter 4 Part 2 of

THE BIG PICTURE: A POST-JUNGIAN MAP OF GLOBAL CINEMA

by James Whitlark, Ph.D.

THE DEVI (GODDESS[, 1960]): SINGNIFICANTLY LESS THAN ONE DIMENSION

The unconscious as void belongs to such uprooted cultures as the one depicted in Satyajit Ray’s The Devi, about a supposed incarnation of Kali. According to Hinduism, she rules a late age—one that has lost the laws and traditions, thereby descending into barbarism. Admittedly, even an anthropologically accurate depiction of her would have to come to terms with that goddess’s negativity. “Whatever the origins of the cult ..., we can say that between the fifth century, when a temple was established ‘filled with demonesses, sacred to the Mothers, who shout most loudly in the darkness’ to the present, her worship has flourished” (Parrinder 221). In Bengal (the site of The Devi), devotions to her particularly occur during the dark of the moon (Östör 213).

While the goddess Parvati personifies maternal benevolence, “[t]he Kali image represents the cruel, unpredictable, smothering, or castrating aspect of the mother, based primarily on the unpredictable (hysterical) nature of maternal rage perceived by the infant”—a rage repressed as an unconscious image and projected on the goddess (Obeyesekere 440). Sacrifices to Parvati are vegetarian; those to Kali, of animals, or, in ages past, of human beings. From time to time, she manifests in mortal form, not entirely a blessing for her human vehicle. The Devi depicts such an incident distantly or derisively, exaggerating Kali’s already strong associations of blackness/blankness until they signify her non-existence from the modern, Westernized perspective.

Ray’s father belonged to the Brahmo-Samaj, a Westernizing sect of Hinduism, which also plays a prominent role in the film (Nyce 4). Founder of the Brahmo-Samaj, Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833), collaborated with Christian missionaries in translating the Bible into Bengali and Sanskrit (Parrinder 235). His organization emphasized those aspects of Hinduism most like Christian morality and mysticism, and rejected what the Occident found especially objectionable, including the caste system, the highly subordinate status of women, and Kali worship. Leaving even the Brahmo-Samaj as part of a reaction against all organized religions, Ray found traditional Hinduism reactionary and thus parodies the negativity of Kali worship. Until Nehru interceded, the film was denied an export permit on the ground that it portrayed India as superstitious (Nyce 52).

At the beginning of The Devi, darkness obscures silhouetted figures in a torchlight, Kali procession. Contrasting with this shadow, a lamp brightly reveals the bodies of Uma and his wife, Daya. He mentions “Christmas,” and announces that he will go to study English. When she suggests that Sanskrit studies would be more appropriate, he reminds her that Ram Mohan Roy of the Brahmo–Samaj learned English. Despite this disagreement, husband and wife begin making love.

The light scene of happy union shifts to the temple and a black statue of Kali. A beggar sings a devotional song that because of the paradoxical nature of Kali, the Terrible Mother, takes the form of a complaint for her absence: “I’ll never call you mother again,… mother why have you turned your eyes away… Your son is in misery.” Uma’s father, Kalinkar (meaning servant of Kali) prays to cleanse himself, repeatedly touching his lips and his eyes. Contrasting with this is a scene of an essentially maternal relationship (Daya caring for her nephew Khoka). The camera returns to the patriarch, praying to Kali; then it again shows a silhouette of the maternal, this time Khoka with his actual mother.

Daya waits on Uma’s father, who distorts their relationship by calling her “mother.” He talks to her of a pilgrimage that he feels guilty he did not make. By Hindu custom, he should have left when his children were grown. He says, however, he stayed home because he needed a “mother” to care for him. Interpreted in a Hindu manner, his devotion to his “little mother,” Daya stems from his inability to break free from materiality and enter a higher spiritual order.

That night, in silhouette, he lies dreaming of Kali, seeing only an incarnation of her. He wakes, convinced that his daughter-in-law incarnates the goddess. He and (following suit) Khoka’s father bow to her, pressing superstitiously into the shadows by her feet.

Soon, in the temple, she sits frozen, an object of veneration, not a voice of Kali. More and more, incense covers her in a smothering, shadowing cloud. She faints, then wakes in a dark room. A temple servant describes her place as ordained.
She is brought a sick child. Without her doing anything of consequence, it recovers. To a Western or Westernized audience, this might mean merely the psychological cure of a psychosomatic disorder. The film leaves it unexplained.

After arguing with his father, her husband visits her in her twilight room and talks her into running away with him. Seeing a broken holy image, she wonders if she might actually be a goddess, as if she identified with its fragmentation. To him, this means that she has gone insane

Returned to the temple, she hears the beggar singing of finding his mother Kali again. Large crowds worship her. She remembers times with her husband when he affectionately called her a goddess—now an ironic and painful memory. She weeps. Deprived of her nephew, she pets the parrot as if she desperately needs some child surrogate. Meanwhile, the lonely husband turns to one of his professors (a member of the Brahmo-samaj) for advice, but there is no easy solution.

Khoka becomes ill. Of course, he is brought to Daya. The local doctor stopped practicing when she began healing. Priests fan the child and give him holy water. The camera provides a close up of the Kali statue, tongue protruding. It recalls a terrifying myth. Destroying evil in the world, Kali became so intoxicated by destruction that she almost brought all into her devouring night. Her husband threw himself at her feet and she paused, sticking out her tongue as a gesture of shock. Designed to remind her to temper her destructiveness, the image is also, in a sense, apotropaic, a synecdoche of chaos to avert it. The magic fails. Khoka dies. Uma accuses his own father of murdering the child by not seeking medical aid; Daya exits alone.

According to the film historian Marie Seto, the movie originally ended with Daya drowned. The shot recalled images of Kali earlier shown sinking in the water. The footage of Daya’s death was damaged. Probably for financial reasons, Ray substituted a less difficult shot of her dying on the shore. Dissatisfied with it, he removed it from the print sent to Cannes, thus leaving the more-mysterious, present ending: an unpainted statue of Kali, the human reduced to effigy and immobility (Seton 154).

Continue to THE BIG PICTURE Chapter 4 Part 3

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