Ray's dreamily sensual, ironic film about Indian superstitiousness was originally banned from export. The story, about a wealthy man who convinces his son's bride that she is an incarnation of the goddess Kali, has startling Freudian undertones. Ray's feeling for the intoxicating beauty within the disintegrating way of life of the 19th-century landowning class makes this one of the rare, honest films about decadence...what we see is the girl's readiness to believe, her liquid acquiescence; not so much pride as a desire to please....The whole indolent life is centered on pleasure....And perhaps because of the camera work, which seems to derive from some of the best traditions of the silent screen and the '30s, perhaps because of the Indian faces themselves...(it's) almost as if these people were isolated from us and each other by their eyes....Sharmila Tagore (Tagore's great-granddaughter), 14 when she played Apu's bride, is the 17-year-old-goddess; she is exquisite, perfect in both these roles." --Pauline Kael, The New Yorker