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Satyajit Ray, The Elephant God, 1979 (still); image: courtesy Janus Films

Film

The Elephant God

Sunday, Oct 7, 2018

1 p.m.

The Elephant God embraces the genre of the detective mystery and it is one of Ray’s best films. The story introduces a private investigator, Felu, who arrives in the holy city of Benares for a holiday. He is accompanied by his young cousin Tapesh and his friend Ganguly, a writer of popular adventure stories. On a visit to a strange holy man, who claims to have swam his way from Allahabad to Benares, Felu is told that a rare, valuable gold statuette of Ganesh, the Elephant God, has been stolen from the safe of a friend. Felu is engaged by the family to unravel the mystery of the missing Ganesh and, thus, the adventures begin. A great gallery of characters are before us, and the teeming, historical byways of Benares, already explored by Ray years ago in Aparajito, are here once more, but now with an incisive, often wry observation.” — SFFILM


Film Details

Country: India

Language: Bengali

Year: 1978
Running time: 112 min

Format:
35mm

Director: Satyajit Ray

Screenwriter: Satyajit Ray

Producers: Kamal Bansal, R.D. Bansal, Lalji Mehrotra

Cinematographer: Soumendu Roy

Editor: Dulal Dutta
Source: Academy Film Archive


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