Forest of Bliss

Basically, a documentary day in the life of the Ganges riverbank at Benares. Well shot, but it has all been seen before in countless variations from Ray's Aparajito to Malle's Phantom India, except that here the stress is on the jostling extremes of sacred and profane: worshippers standing absorbed in their rituals while dogs gnaw hungrily at corpses floating by. Oddly, though made for the Harvard Film Study Center, it is presented as an impressionistic travelogue without either commentary or subtitles. Several of the rites and customs, and at least one dialogue scene, demand elucidation.