Review of Devi / দেবী, directed by Satyajit Ray

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I feel like a lot of my blog introductions, especially when it comes to movies, have been lamenting on the fact I don’t have a ton of time lately. I used to work as a film critic (which, in fact, was so incredibly underpaid that I now make more off of this blog’s display ads than I ever did publishing anywhere else), and then when I was in graduate school I was writing a lot about film, so I used to watch so many movies.

But now I work an 8-5, come home, and then doom scroll my evenings away instead of watching the movies I used to love so dearly. And recently I realized I want to stop doing that, so I’ve set limits on my phone and am fully prepared to sit back and watch more movies and read more books in order to feed my brain.

I ended up acquiring a Criterion subscription in order to try and nourish my brain in this way, and I have actually been watching a ton of movies on the Criterion Channel. I feel like I’m never going to get through the entirety of their catalogue in my life, especially considering I’m pretty broke to pay for this every single year—or at least right now.

One of the great things about the Criterion subscription though is I have access to Satyajit Ray films. I studied Bangla formally and even won a Fulbright to do work in Kolkata (although I was denied a visa and probably can’t go there now), so Bengali literature and cinema truly have a special play in my heart. It’s how I ended up watching Devi on one lonely work night instead of sleeping.

Let’s get into the review! I don’t want to ramble too much.

A young woman in rural West Bengal is declared an incarnation of a goddess, leading to disastrous consequences for her and her family.

Devi takes place in rural West Bengal, sometime in the 1800s, although some of the realities in this movie still mirror modern India today. A widowed man, Kalikinar, lives in his estate in West Bengal with two of his sons, his sons’ wives, and grandchild Khoka, who belongs to Taraprasad and Harasundari.

Our main character in this movie is Doyamoyee, who is married to Umaprasad. He goes to school in Kolkata, and after a festival, he goes back to town in order to go back to class. But while Doyamoyee stays behind, doing chores and taking care of Khoka, something happens.

Kalikinkar is a devotee of Kali, a goddess in Hinduism. One night he has a dream in which Kali’s eyes merge with Doyamoyee’s own eyes, which he decides is a sign that Doyamoyee is an incarnation of the goddess. He insists on waking her up after that and falls to her feet in prayer, and his son mimic his actions. The wife’s soon, Harasundari, does not believe this.

A priest is called in to perform a ritual, which Doyamoyee then faints during. Kalikinkar sees this as her going into a religious trance, further reinforcing his beliefs. When she wakes up she asks Harasundari to write a message to her husband about what has happened. From this point on, she’s given a private room in the mansion and perceived as an idol.

People begin doing their worship prayers with her as the idol, and a beggar even brings his sick grandson to heal her. Kalikinkar tells her to give the sick boy some prayer water used to wash a goddess’s feet, and he’s revived. Umaprasad arrives home during this and expresses his concern about what is going on, but is dismissed when the boy wakes up.

Umaprasad comes into Doyamoyee’s room that night and begs her to leave with him. She follows, but once they make it to the river she stops. She thinks that she might actually be the goddess and if she leaves, she would be abandoning her subjects. She asks her husband to take her home, and he does just that then retreats to Kolkata.

Doyamoyee’s fame continues to grow in the mean time, and more people begin coming into the home for worship. She begins feeling like she’s being left behind by everyone else, as she’s now isolated as a religious figure, and Khoka no longer comes to her.

But when he falls sick, Harasundari summons a doctor. The doctor agrees to bring in medicine, but when Taraprasad comes into the room, he questions this and tells his father. His father thinks only Doyamoyee can protect his grandson, so he asks her to heal him.

She has his doubts, and Harasundari also thinks that this is a terrible idea. They go through with it, but Khoka passes away during the night. Umprasad comes home to Kalikinkar weeping at the foot of a statue of Kali, while Harasundari blames Doyamoyee for being a witch who killed her son. Umaprasad blames his father for what happened, then goes to find Doyamoyee.

She has already gone mad, though, as she has dressed up in her wedding attire and says they must leave before they kill her. The film ends with her running off into a field as Umaprasad calls for her.

Overall Thoughts

I think it’s fascinating watching this movie in 2026, especially considering recent Indian politics and how people are putting people just like Doyamoyee under pressure as dubbing them incarnations of gods and goddesses. It also shows how people reject science and reality for their faith, especially when it comes to big, life changing events.

This is another brilliant Satyajit Ray movies. He does a good job of not only capturing specific periods in Indian and Bengali history beautifully, but he also adds these nuanced layers about what society and life is like during that time. Some are critiques, which I would say with this movie, but they’re fairly honest to his interpretation.

I say watch this one if you’re a Ray fan, or into Indian or Bengali cinema as a whole. It’s a straightforward but compelling movie that gives you a lot to think about at the end of the day.

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