Distant Thunder [Ashani Sanket] **** (1973, Soumitra Chatterjee, Bobita, Sandhya Roy) – Classic Movie Review 11,174

The 1973 Indian film Distant Thunder [Ashani Sanket] is director Satyajit Ray’s moving look at the horrifying effects of the Bengali famine in 1943, viewed in microcosm through the lives of a warm-hearted doctor-teacher Gangacharan Chakravarti (Soumitra Chatterjee) and his generous wife Ananga (Bobita) in one small village. As war and famine rage, Gangacharan tries to preserve his privileged position as the village’s new highest caste Brahmin but Ananga tries to help the villagers.

Dipping his toe into India’s bitter political realities, Ray films realistically in Eastmancolor, but the picture is informed with his accustomed poetry, gentle humour and humanism. The title is a reference to World War Two, which by stopping cargo ships helped to cause the famine that killed more than five million people.

The screenplay by Satyajit Ray is based on a novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, the author of Pather Panchali.

Distant Thunder [Ashani Sanket] is the winner of the Golden Berlin Bear best film award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1973.

Also in the cast are Sandhya Roy, Gobinda Chakravarti, Romesh Mukerji, Chitra Banerjee, Nani Ganguli, Anil Ganguli, Shei Pal and Suchita Roy.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,174

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