Distant Thunder, a rare color film by Satyajit Ray, is perhaps the master film-maker's loveliest, but it could take the cake as his most simple-minded and literal….

Ray gets in a few social barbs at the huszling middle class. But while Ray plants the seed for satire, he doesn't go anywhere with it. It's a red herring—the calm before the storm.

After this point the narrative becomes an exposition of the theme: what war does to people, specifically what war does to Ray's innocents who will endure famine although the war never touches them directly. Distant Thunder has been compared with Bergman's Shame but the vivid images matched with heavy metaphors and tired plot bones brings it closer to Cries and Whispers, Bergman's awesome closet drama…. Distant Thunder begins as a fairy tale romance and ends on the same note; there's nowhere the film can go dramatically...