Distant Thunder

Gangacharan is the village's new Brahmin: he opens a school, runs the religious observances, and tries to do something about the epidemics. The year is 1943; the war is far away but planes pass over the fields, and the rice begins to disappear. First the price climbs, then there is simply none. Gangacharan works to protect his own privileged position while his wife Ananga looks for ways to help the people around them. Satyajit Ray adapted Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's novel. Millions died in the famine it depicts, and historians still argue about its causes, wartime supply policy very much included. Ray never piles up bodies to show it: the fields are lush, the sky is clear, and people quietly waste away. It won the Golden Bear in Berlin.