Ray's films—arguably the most considerable achievement in the art of our time—have made only a modest impact in relation to their quality. What the curious but weary West has wanted from India has been its peripheral and largely discarded mysticism, not its human problems and statistics of defeat.

Where much of even the best cinema is a game, played in isolation and its interest dependent on awareness of cultural cross-references and its own improvizations, Ray's films have an organic growth, to which the actors in prescribed situations contribute, that makes discussions of technique and influence almost superfluous. (p. 150)

In The Adversary the visual and dialogue references to politics are more obvious than usual, but it is what Ray makes out of nothing, in purely cinematic terms, that is significant, not what his films can be reduced to in terms of theme and incident.

In fact, each...