BD 107 The Ritual (Ghatashraddha)

[What A Disgrace]

Released at the peak of the Parallel Cinema movement in India, Girish Kasaravalli’s groundbreaking debut feature is scathing critique of religious hypocrisy.

The film tells of a friendship between two outsiders, a young Brahmin boy at a religious school, bullied by his peers, and the headmaster’s widowed daughter who conceals a secret pregnancy for fear of being ostracised.

Kasaravalli’s forthright and uncompromising film takes aim at a vicious patriarchal system. Its daring subject matter and neorealist approach established him as a major talent in the Indian film industry.

• The Ritual (Ghatashraddha, 1977) presented from the new 4K restoration by Film Heritage Foundation, Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project and George Lucas' Hobson/Lucas Family Foundation.
• New filmed interview with director Girish Kasaravalli.
• Booklet with new writing by Dr Omar Ahmed, director Girish Kasaravalli on the film, plus Film Heritage Foundation’s Shivendra Singh Dungarpur on the restoration.
• New English subtitle translation.
• Region free Blu-ray (A/B/C

14 September

[brundlefly]

A tremendous film, can't wait to see its restoration. Wrote this when it was one of my orphans in the '70s List:

A haunting story about learning cruelty and kindness. A motherless brahmin boy is left by his father to study in a small forest village; undersized and new and subject to bullying, he takes refuge with the young widow daughter of the schoolmaster, who is suffering isolation of her own. She needs his innocence and lack of judgment, he needs her care and protection, they tentatively form a natural mother-child bond.

The foundation is humane social criticism and it goes some bold places for its place and time. The backbone is a coming of age story that observes how childhood superstitions and cruelty shift into societal prejudices. The wooded setting and childhood pov gives it the whiff of a folk tale. Too many shots of people sitting still, hiding scared, can make this feel more static than it is, and oversized eyes can be asked to do a lot, but this is a deeply affecting film about graduating to the terrors of the adult world.