Admission $1.00
“Deliverance is...taken from a story by the fine Hindi writer Munshi Premchand about a village Brahmin who exploits an untouchable who comes to him for a favor and, when the man dies, carefully disposes of his body without actually touching him. Ray's anger is never apparent--a Marxist like Mrinal Sen would certainly have made the film very differently. Yet his icily clear view of what the story is about is everywhere apparent” (Derek Malcolm, The Guardian). “The film makes its points briefly, with every act and every word made to count.... Boldly drawn characters dominate. Smita Patil is...made to look like any nondescript Harijan woman who looks dully at you in thousands of villages.... At the center of the film is the mind of Dukhi (the untouchable) which accepts tradition, however sullenly. It is that which binds him--not force or economic necessity. What kills him is...the hollowness within him created by centuries of brutish existence” (Iqbal Masud, International Film Guide 1983).