Devi (1960) Directed by the masterful Satyajit Ray, Devi ("The Goddess") unfolds as a haunting meditation on faith, identity, and the perilous deification of women. Based on a short story by Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyay, this lyrical and unsettling drama stars a luminous Sharmila Tagore, alongside Soumitra Chatterjee and the formidable Chhabi Biswas. Set in 19th-century Bengal, the film tells the tragic tale of a 17-year-old bride, Doyamoyee. While her young husband departs for Calcutta to complete his final college exams, her father-in-law, after a fevered dream, becomes convinced she is the reincarnation of the goddess Kali. What begins as a vision spirals into a nightmare, as the girl is cloaked in divinity and stripped of her humanity. This regressive and unnerving narrative, a mirror held up to blind devotion, faced fierce resistance. Indeed, Devi was initially banned in India, until Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru intervened, recognising its profound artistic and social resonance. The supporting cast includes: Karuna Banerjee as Harasundari, the voice of reason; Purnendu Mukherjee as Taraprasad Roy, Kalikinkar's elder son; Arpan Chowdhury as Khoka, the innocent child drawn into the myth; Anil Chatterjee as Bhudeb, Umaprasad's friend in Calcutta; Mohammed Israil as Nibaran, a beggar devoted to his grandson; Kali Sarkar as Professor Sarkar; Khagesh Chakravarti as the Kaviraj; Santa Devi as Sarala and Nagendranath Kabyabyakarantirtha as the devout priest. Behind the scenes, the film's evocative atmosphere was shaped by the visionary Bansi Chandragupta (Art Direction) and the meticulous Durgadas Mitra (Sound Design). Though cloaked in period costume, Devi speaks to timeless themes—the erasure of female agency, the seductive danger of blind belief, and the societal impulse to elevate women into symbols while denying them personhood. Ray's vision is neither anti-religious nor cynical; rather, it is a sober critique of religious dogmatism and the cultural myopia that allows such myths to fester. In Ray's own words, the film was not an assault on religion itself, but on its distortion—its weaponisation in the hands of the unsophisticated and unthinking. He dismissed criticism of the film as naïve, asserting that many had failed to perceive its nuanced, humanist core. Devi was awarded the President's Silver Medal for Best Feature Film in Bengali at the 1960 National Film Awards, and went on to receive international acclaim, winning the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival. Directors William Wyler and Elia Kazan praised it as “poetry on celluloid”, and Francis Ford Coppola hailed it as Ray's finest work—a “cinematic milestone.” In 1996, the Academy Film Archive preserved Devi, ensuring that its quiet power endures. The film also inspired a modern operatic adaptation, The Goddess, composed by Allen Shearer—a fitting transformation for a tale that remains as resonant and tragic as a myth whispered across time.