Ray, Satyajit - Richard Schickel

RICHARD SCHICKEL

Satyajit Ray, the noted Indian director, is up to his usual lack of tricks in his latest film, Kanchenjungha. Once again he has dared to make a movie of such stately pace and conventionality of imagery that it—and the audience—always teeters on the brink of boredom. Once again his characters are fictional familiars—archetypes in danger of becoming stereotypes. Once again his story is little more than a cliché. And once again, by a magic that is peculiarly his own, he forces us to attend his deliberately difficult work closely and to care, perhaps more than common sense would dictate, about its outcome. (p. 77)

Some sketchy subplots underpin [the] central situation, but they are no more thrill-packed than the major premise. The Darjeeling setting is interesting, but Ray, who is no pictorialist, handles it routinely. The technical quality of the film is distractingly poor. What, then, is so fascinating about it?

I cannot...

[The entire page is 537 words long]

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