O Santo

This is one of Ray's short stories. It lacks the intensity of his full-length features. Its a satire which appropriately captures the post-independence Indian zeitgeist. Its a sweet tale of how a charlatan is exposed with help from basic science and motivation from a lover boy in distress. Be it a short story or not, in every one of his movies, Ray has been a beacon by conveying his socially progressive ideas. He's a master at exposing the fault lines in the Indian society and delivering his wisdom packaged in a entertaining manner. I saw the movie in a combination pack with another one of his shorts - Kapurush. Kapurush is an emotion-packed drama. It captures the anxiety and rekindling of emotions of a chance meeting between two estranged lovers.

On a railroad trip back home, a retired lawyer meets holy man Charuprakash Ghosh and falls under his spell. So does his daughter, which worries the young man who loves her. He investigates and soon becomes convinced he is a fraud.

Satyajit Ray's comedy credits an Indian writer as its source, but strikes me as owing a good deal to Moliere's TARTUFFE. Ghosh's babbling line includes being friends with all the great holy man of the past, and urging followers to achieve enlightenment by going onto the roof at noon and staring at the sun while they recite a prayer 972 times. I don't find this one of Ray's more compelling movies; the nonsensical things his con man continually says are arrant nonsense..... but that may be a reaction due to the fact that as a westerner, what he says makes no sense and is offensive. The offensiveness is probably deliberate on Ray's part, but makes the whole thing seem trivial.

A religious charlatan claims to have been around for thousands of years, and no matter how outrageous his lies, has an entire village rapt and under his influence. This includes a widower and his daughter, upsetting the plans of marriage for her suitor, so the young man turns to his friends for help. The film is based on a short story by Parashuram, but it seems like a variation of Molière's Tartuffe, or reminded me of it anyway. I certainly like the concept of exposing religious hypocrisy anywhere and everywhere, but the story here is too linear and simple to make a great film. Ray doesn't flesh out his characters or develop any other subplot, so even at 65 minutes it felt a little dry. It's kind of interesting to compare this fictional character to other con-men though.

"Mahapurush: The Holy Man" is a decent little film, but I definitely should point out that it is little in scope and style. Satyajit Ray has taken one of his short stories and brought it to the screen. And, at only a little over an hour and a very simple plot, it seems pretty obvious that it was a short story. Because of this, the film is rather slight and I don't recommend it for folks not familiar with Ray's work, as he's done better and more amazing films. This one is more for someone wanting to see all of Ray's films--even the minor ones.

The film begins with a widower meeting a holy man on a train. Soon, the man is won over by the holy man and has convinced practically everyone in his family to become disciples of the guy and he comes to live with them. There is only one problem--he spouts nothing but hogwash and he's clearly a phony. For example, the guy claims to be older than the Buddha and Jesus AND that he told Einstein about the theory of relativity!! So how are the family's friends going to expose the truth? See the film and find out for yourself.

My biggest complaint about the film is much of the ending--which I found a bit vague and confusing. However, there are some nice character studies and the film is enjoyable. In many ways, this is like an Indian version of the old Moliere play, "Tartuffe".

(1965) The Holy Man/ Mahapurush (In Bengali with English subtitles) COMEDY DRAMA

Adapted from the story "Birinchi Baba" by Rajshekhar 'Parashuram' Basu, music, co-written and directed by Satyajit Ray that has popular spiritual leader, Birinchi Baba (Charuprakash Ghosh) and his sidekick, Kyabla (Rabi Ghosh) happened to share the same boxcar with a retired lawyer and his daughter, Buchki ((Gitali Roy) welcoming them to their home. It is there, is when things become complicated is when the daughter, Buchi were given instructions by the guru to stray far away from the student, Satya (Satindra Bhattacharya) who happen to take a liking to her. Once Satya and his peers begin to realize this, they then attempt to go to great lengths to expose the guru, Birinchi Baba and his sidekick for who they really are, as a fraud or as con men.

Saw this on TCM and was late at night after seeing Satyajit Ray's other movie "Devi" or "The Goddess", and although it was labelled as a comedy, I did not see a single thing I thought was funny. It was amusing but it could be the fact that I was kind of tired, despite spiritual con men is still happening today.