Summary
In a diptych carved from Vedic ether, Savitri—radiant as molten saffron—paces the threshold between mortality and myth, her anklets chiming against the dry leaves of the Sal forest where Satyavan’s axe once sang; when Yama, astride a midnight-blue buffalo whose breath reeks of cosmos, coils the noose of destiny around her husband’s soul, she pursues the god across a liminal sky-bridge stitched from funeral smoke and saffron dusk, debating dharma with such lucid ferocity that even the god of endings yields, returning pulse to the body of the woodcutter while blind parents touch the sudden warmth of their son’s chest as though sunrise had been folded into flesh. The same reel of celluloid later unfurls Sukanya, curious as a flame, piercing the iris of the ant-hill sage Chyvana with a thorn of curiosity; condemned to wed the decrepit seer, she anoints his lichened skin until time itself relents, molting him into gilded youth, their embrace igniting a horizon where wrinkle and wonder cancel each other out. Between these twin tales, the camera lingers on betel-stained lips, buffalo hooves striking sparks off clouds, and lotus petals drifting across a river that remembers every name it ever carried.
Synopsis
This film tells two independent stories from the Mahabharata. The first part features the princess Savitri, who stands by her husband, the woodcutter Satyavan, when he is marked by Yama, the god of Death. When Yama fulfills his prophecy and takes away Satyavan's life, Savitri pleads with him and eventually wins her husband back. There are extraordinary scenes showing Savitri's pleas with the god sitting astride a buffalo somewhere between heaven and earth, intercut with shots of the couple's idyllic life as Savitri tends to her blind parents-in-law. The second half narrates the legend of Sukanya, the daughter of Sharyati. Seeing a large ant-hill, and unaware that it has been built over the meditating sage Chyvana, she blinds the sage and, in return, is forced to marry him. She tends to the old and decrepit man, and he changes into a handsome youth.
Director
