Durga Puja in Bengali cinema: How Satyajit Ray and Rituparno Ghosh portray the goddess
An analysis of Bengali cinema explores how legendary filmmakers like Satyajit Ray and Rituparno Ghosh utilize the imagery of Goddess Durga during Durga Puja to examine female agency, family dynamics, and patriarchal constraints. Rather than serving merely as festive background, the goddess's presence acts as a narrative mirror for the characters' internal conflicts.
Why it matters
Provides cultural and artistic context on how traditional iconography is subverted in South Asian cinema to critique societal norms and power structures.
Durga Puja in Bengali cinema: How Satyajit Ray and Rituparno Ghosh portray the goddess center Rakhee Gulzar in Aparna Sen’s Parama ( 1985) Special Arrangement https://th-i.thgim.com/public/incoming/26mlp5/article71603937.ece/alternates/FREE_1200/Rakhee%20Gulzar%20Aparna%20Sen%20Parama.jpg Rakhee Gulzar in Aparna Sen’s Parama ( 1985) From Devi and Parama to Utsab and Antarmahal, Bengali filmmakers have used Durga’s image to explore women’s agency, patriarchal control, family tensions and the contradictions between the goddess’s power and women’s lives In Bengali cinema, the goddess can be more than a marker of the festive season. What matters is what her presence does to those around her. Does Durga become a witness to transgression, a counterpoint to human cruelty, an ideal that a woman is asked to embody, or a mirror reflecting a household’s contradictions? In films such as Satyajit Ray’s Devi, Aparna Sen’s Parama and Rituparno Ghosh’s Utsab and Antarmahal, the goddess’s image becomes part of the drama.
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