162 mins approx. The film is a free take-off from the pivotal gambling episode in the Mahabharata, about two neighbouring kings addicted to dice. King Sohat's plot to kill King Ranjit with a poisoned arrow is foiled when a hermit restores him to good health, and Ranjit proceeds to fall in love with the hermit's daughter, Sunita, but Sohat has him framed for the murder of her father. Ranjit is able to establish his innocence when the real murderer makes a death bed confession, but before his marriage to Sunita, Sohat challenges him to a game of dice. For his new score for the film, Roger White has returned to the traditional roots of music for silent Indian cinema, and combined this with the sound effects a contemporary audience would have experienced.
Features live musical accompaniment from traditional Asian instrumentalists.
With Himasu Rai, Charu Roy, Seeta Devi. 100 mins approx. This is clearly Pabst's year for revivals, thanks in this instance to the painstaking restoration carried out by the Munchen Filmmuseum. A study of the inhabitants of a single street in inflation-ridden Vienna immediately after WW1, this is the film which brought fame to both Pabst and the then unknown Greta Garbo . The film was acclaimed for the reality and accuracy with which it portrayed the poverty, despair and economic and moral breakdown of Central Europe after Germany's defeat in the War.