Director
"Béhula" takes as its plot the rivalry between the goddesses Chandi, wife of Shiva, and Manasa, his daughter. The merchant Chand Sadagar is a faithful devotee of Chandi, and Manasa attempts to attract him. Rejected by Chand Sadagar, Manasa condemns his son, Lakhindar, to perish on the night of his marriage to the beautiful Béhula. The next morning, Béhula discovers her husband’s inanimate body after he suffers a snakebite. She sets out on a long voyage along the Ganges until she succeeds in bringing him back to life.
Director
This is, for 1906, a strikingly ambitious prototype-documentary travelogue filmed in and around the cities now called Kolkata and Mumbai. It's full of precious, occasionally startling images, from an extended 'phantom ride' down busy Calcutta streets to thronging port life, street trading, even the cremation of a human body and the ritual decapitation of lambs on a Bombay street – a scene some viewers may find upsetting. This is a French production but, like many of the 'exotic' travel films so popular in early cinema, it travelled widely itself – hence this version, with English language intertitles.
