When the blank visage of the Hindu goddess Durga emerges in the opening scene of Devi, wrapped in Ustad Ali Akbar Khan’s poignant scores, it immediately establishes a foreboding tone. Her bare profile, then, starts taking on colour and ornaments, along with the mounting rhythm of bells and drums which unveil the grandeur of the Durga Puja celebration. We suddenly see hundreds of devotees honouring the Mother Goddess with prayers, animal sacrifices and the ceremonial procession of her life-sized statue on a litter, finalising with its submersion in the local river. This act of immersing Durga’s statue, I realise only later, is deeply symbolic, foreshadowing the eventual metaphorical suffocation of her human reflection – our protagonist – along the film’s tragic trajectory.

The plot, which unfolds swiftly, is set in 1860 within the confines of a feudal Bengali household ruled by the widowed zamindar Kalikinkar Roy (Chhabi Biswas), a devout patriarch living with his two sons and their wives under the same roof. His elder son, the hedonistic Taraprasad, is in a strained marriage with Harasundari while their endearing young son, Khoka, brings joy to the entire mansion. By contrast, Kalikinkar’s younger son, Umaprasad (Soumitra Chatterjee), shares a tender and affectionate bond with his seventeen-year-old wife, Doyamoyee (Sharmila Tagore, who was barely fifteen years old at the time). When Uma departs for Calcutta to finish his English studies, Doya remains behind, immersing herself in daily routines such as telling stories to her beloved nephew Khoka and dutifully attending to her father-in-law’s needs. However, Kalikinkar’s obsessive devotion to the goddess Kali is mirrored in his intense – and, I must say, at times rather clingy and uncomfortable – admiration for Doya, to the extent that he refers to her as “Little Mother”, blurring the lines between familial affection and spiritual fervour – and maybe even sensual undertones. This dynamic culminates one night in a vivid dream, where Kalikinkar envisions Doya as an incarnation of the goddess Kali. Empowered by his wealth and authority, his declaration is met with unquestioning acceptance by the household and the surrounding community, elevating her to a (literal) pedestal as an object of worship, stripping off her agency. When sceptical Harasundari sends Uma a distressed letter pleading for his intervention, he rushes back to rescue his wife from this oppressive role. However, Doya’s transformation has already taken root, as her identity is subsumed under the divine role thrust upon her. The tragedy deepens when little Khoka falls seriously ill and medicine is rejected in favour of Doya’s “healing power,” which leads to his death. Unable to save Khoka, she is crushed under the collective weight of expectation, superstition and patriarchal control.

This emotive drama, which can be considered Satyajit Ray’s first foray into overt socio-cultural critique, builds upon a constant tension between opposing forces in colonial Bengal: tradition and modernity, reason and superstition, the old and the new, devotion and exploitation, the personal and the societal, and Western education and Eastern belief systems, embodied most clearly in the dynamic between Kalikinkar and Uma. We see Uma, for instance, viewing English as a gateway to knowledge, having progressive thoughts, smoking cigarettes, and seeking guidance from his mentor, who has a Shakespeare’s portrait on his wall – not religious altars. Yet, Ray approaches these dichotomies with remarkable nuance, neither dismissing faith nor fully endorsing it but instead portraying this tension as a deeply human – and, I would say, post-colonial – struggle. Ray even seems to avoid painting Uma as a simplistic saviour figure. Despite his education and love for Doya, his eventual failure to save her underscores the difficulty of challenging deep-seated cultural norms, as well as the limitations of reason when faced with collective vehemence. Ray’s critique is aimed directly at how religious fanaticism, when entwined with patriarchal structures, becomes a tool of power and control in subjugating women.

In this regard, I daresay that feminist undercurrents run through the narrative in various ways. First of all, it is well conveyed that Doya is trapped between two men, her father-in-law and her husband, and it doesn’t matter which side is “right” because whether as an ordinary young wife or as a sacred deity, Doya is deemed voiceless. She, ironically, turns into the exact opposite of what Kali symbolises (vigour, untamed power and the transformative force of nature), losing her innate divine strength. This transformation is masterfully depicted through close-ups of Sharmila Tagore’s face, capturing her shift from a once-vibrant, lively and playful young woman to a passive, tormented and hollowed figure. The more she is revered as a Goddess, the more her vibrant expressions fade, becoming almost as lifeless and petrified as the blank visage of Durga that both opens and closes the film. She even loses her mental faculties. Upon Uma’s attempt to escape with her, Doya refuses to leave and asks, “What if I am the Goddess?”. Uma retorts, “If you were, wouldn’t you know it?” This chilling exchange proves her disorientation and loss of self, as the manipulative forces have rendered her unable to discern her reality. Gaslighting, in a cinematographic nutshell. Also, Ray exposes the hypocrisy of Western ideals of “modernity”, when Uma’s mentor frames the situation as merely “a test” yet tells him that the real issue is that “as a husband, you’ve been deprived of your natural rights”, dismissing the gravity of Doya’s plight. Even in this tragic situation, the narrative subtly critiques how, once again, the man is positioned as the true victim.

In Devi, visual choices, such as the interplay between lights and darkness and grand spaces in contrast with the facial close-ups, also serve as further reflections of those many opposing tensions. Turning the short story of Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyay into an evocative period drama, the film is a timeless meditation on the ongoing dehumanisation and dispossession of women in the name of faith and collective well-being. Today, this premise continues to be influenced not only by religious dogma but also by everyday politics.