Distant thunder

The focal characters of Ray's film, set in a Bengali village in 1943, are Ganga, a young and somewhat pompous Brahmin, and his wife Ananga. Having just settled in the village, Ganga is comically self-conscious of his roles as priest, teacher, doctor, and wise man conferred upon him by caste. When Ananga asks him if he really can ward off a cholera outbreak through spells for which neighboring hamlets will pay handsomely, he replies that in addition to spells, he will also pass on the practical information from his hygiene encylopedia. Village tranquility is ruptured, however, as the reverberations of World War II intrude. As the war-induced rice shortage becomes acute, life-long trusts are betrayed and civil order disintegrates. The scramble to survive humiliates some of Ray's characters but enobles others, including Ganga who undergoes a radical and moving political conversion. The village becomes a microcosm for the wider sufferings of India, giving weight to the statistic given at the end that over 5 million people died at the time.