An Enemy of the People

Satyajit Ray's 1990 Bengali film follows Ashoke Gupta, a doctor working in a town near Calcutta. He finds that the water held sacred at a popular temple is the source of an outbreak of typhoid and hepatitis; when he tries to publicise the warning, everyone dependent on the temple's income turns against him. It is adapted from Ibsen's play, and in carrying it into an Indian context Ray puts the intersection of religion and commerce at the centre. The doctor being right serves no purpose; the town chooses its income rather than the truth. Ray made the film after serious heart illness and worked almost entirely indoors, in the studio. That constraint sets its look; the scenes rest on dialogue and stand close to theatre. Soumitra Chatterjee leads. Who it's for: those who like Ray's cinema and literary adaptation. Who it's not for: viewers expecting the visual richness of his early period; this late work is plain and talk-based.