- Ghatashraddha
Infobox Film
name = Ghatashraddha
image_size =
caption =
director =Girish Kasaravalli
producer = Sadanand Suvarna (Suvarnagiri Films)
writer =U. R. Ananthamurthy (short Story)
Girish Kasaravalli &K.V. Subbanna (Screenplay)
story =U. R. Ananthamurthy
dialogue =
starring =Meena Kutappa
Amit KumarRamaswami Iyengar
music =B.V. Karanth
lyrics =
cinematography = S. Ramachandra
editing = Umesh Kulkarni
distributor =
released =1977
runtime = 144 min
country = IND
language =Kannada
colour = B & W
imdb_id = 0076080Ghatashraddha (The Ritual) is 1977
Kannada language film directed byGirish Kasaravalli . The film is based on a novella by eminent Kannada writerU R Ananthamurthy .It won the 1978
National Film Award for Best Film and in 2002 became the only India film at the Film Archive of Paris, selected for the Cinema hundredth anniversary celebrations, amongst one of the best 100 in the world [ [http://www.asiaticafilmmediale.it/2002/uk/intro.html Asiaticafilmmediale] ] .This was Girish Kasaravalli first feature film as a director, and marked not just the arrival of a new promising filmmaker but also that of Kannada cinema in the India's 'New Cinema' horizon [ [http://www.southasiancinema.com/reviews.htm southasiancinema] ] .
The film won, Amit Kumar, the 1978
National Film Award for Best Child Artist , and the 1978National Film Award for Best Music Direction forB.V. Karanth .Plot
The film was set in 1920s and depicts a rural village in Karnataka, where a young widow, the daughter of a village scholar who runs a local school, finds herself pregnant after being seduced by a teacher. While the girl remains unaware of the happenings within and around her, she is excommunicated by her father, who performs her funeral rites (Ghatashraddha), while she is still alive. A little boy through whose eyes the entire story is perceived goes back home, after the school is closed down following the incident.
This movie also shows a clear picture of Class division amogst Brahmins and shudras in quite a few scenes - when the litlle boy tries to touch the shudra slave he actually runs away saying it is not possible. And the before the cliamx scene where the Shudra slave says to the main preist " He had saved his daughter (who got pregnant being an widow) even from the snakes, but could not save her from an Brahmin."
References
External links
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* [http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/283279/The-Ritual/overview Overview at NY Times]
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