The Kingdom of Diamonds

Satyajit Ray's sequel to his 1969 film Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne, and a political satire in the guise of a children's film. Goopy and Bagha are invited to the land of the Diamond King. The king oppresses his people, the wealth from the mines goes to him alone, and he wants everyone who doubts his order silenced. For that there is a machine in the palace: those who object are put into a chamber and come out having stopped thinking. The one point of resistance in the country is Udayan, the village schoolmaster. The most striking formal decision is linguistic: all the dialogue rhymes. The single exception is the teacher. The only person who thinks freely is the only one not forced into a form. The timing matters: the film came immediately after India emerged from the Emergency of 1975 to 1977, with its press censorship and mass arrests. Ray wrote the music as well. Utpal Dutt plays the Diamond King. An important work for anyone who likes Indian cinema and political films that speak through fable. Translation inevitably loses the rhymed text, and part of the film's power, which comes from that play with language, stays behind in the subtitles.