Arsenevich: Satyajit Ray - Mahapurush (1965)

El santo

Gurupada es un abogado muy triste desde que enviudó. Padre de una hija, Buchki, va a cambiar su vida cuando conoce al santón Birinchi Baba, que asegura no tener edad, y haber departido a lo largo de vida con Jesús, Platón, Buda, Einstein... Birinchi tiene muchos discípulos, y Gurupada se unirá al grupo. La misma decisión tomará Buchki, aunque por razones bien diversas: su novio Satya la ha decepcionado, y quiere provocarlo con su nueva devoción. Esto empujará a Satya a tratar de demostrar que Birinchi es un impostor.

Adaptación de un relato de Parashuram. Se trata de una fábula satírica acerca de la credulidad y el engaño. En apenas una hora perfila la psicología del charlatán y de quien está dispuesto a creer cualquier cosas para evitar afrontar la realidad de la vida. (decine21.com)

The Saint

Returning from Nasik on a train, the lawyer Gurupodo (Prasad Mukherjee) finds himself in the thrall of a seemingly wise Holy Man, Birinchi Baba (Charuprakash Ghosh), with whom he is sharing a carriage. Troubled and lost since the death of his wife a year ago, Gurupodo is looking for direction and believes he has found it when he witnesses the “miracle” of the Holy Man’s ability to make the sun rise …at dawn. He installs the wise man in his house and not only becomes a disciple, he also intends to induct his daughter Buchki (Gitali Roy) into the priesthood. This causes rather a problem for Satta (Satindra Bhattacharya) who, in a roundabout way, was intending to ask Buchki to marry him. As the Holy Man makes claims that over his long lifetime he has been a teacher of Plato, Leonardo da Vinci and Einstein, as well as being on to be on first name terms with Buddha and having witnessed the Crucifixion of the Christ, Satto hopes he can convince his learned group of scientific and intellectual friends to expose him for the fraud he clearly is, and perhaps impress Buchki with his brilliance in the process.