MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Thunder’ Rumbles in Irvine : Satyajit Ray’s 1973 movie about famine in a Bengal village during World War II kicks off a multicultural video series.

Satyajit Ray’s “Distant Thunder,” which opens the city’s “multicultural” films-on-video series tonight, was inspired by the Indian famine that killed millions during the later years of World War II. The film informs us that as combat escalated, rice eventually became as rare as gold dust.

Made in 1973, and based on Bibhutibhusan Banerjee’s 1946 novel of the same name, “Distant Thunder” begins with a romantic appreciation of military might. Ananga (played by Babita), the baby bride of the only Brahmin in the primitive Bengal village where the movie is set, watches a squad of fighter planes overhead. Her lovely face is smiling and she sighs at the beauty of these “flying machines.”

When her husband, Gangacharan (Soumitra Chatterji), meets with the town’s other leaders , they don’t even know enough about the war to really discuss it. They think, maybe, it’s far to the east but they aren’t sure; the battles are just abstractions, the “distant thunder” light years away from their calm world.

But as the famine grows, the war becomes a smothering presence, still remote but now far from removed. Everything about their lives changes, and few are affected more than Gangacharan.

Ray and Chatterji, an intensely quiet actor, first present Gangacharan as an annoyingly pompous man who passes himself off as the village doctor by studying the almanac for medical tips. He has even a grander design: Gangacharan plans to become the local priest and teacher as well. We can’t tell what motivates him--goodness or ego.

Gangacharan indulges himself to the point of self-absorption; he doesn’t even notice how beautiful his wife is until she mentions that everyone else thinks so. His forehead creases analytically and he has to study her face to make sure it’s true.

Ray reaches for epiphany as Gangacharan becomes more compassionate, more seeing, as times get tough. There’s melodrama in his evolution--his change is a radical one, and that completeness doesn’t always seem authentic--but feeling as well. Ray’s overall technique is so keyed to simplicity, and the gracefulness it brings, that forgiving these missteps comes without a lot of exertion.

There are some unpardonable ones, though. Ray stacks the deck by having the local ogre--a man who trades rice for sex--horribly scarred; his deformity isn’t a sympathetic touch, but a sensational one. Through him we’re suppose to experience the barbarity of the circumstances. Later, an attempted rape scene involving another man comes out of nowhere and also is gratuitous.

“Distant Thunder” evokes more in the small moments, whether in story or symbol. An opening passage focuses on Ananga’s hand as it slowly bobs up through the river, for a few seconds inspiring images of a corpse rising to the surface. But the vision is soon replaced by something more radiant, lively, optimistic.

Ray returns to the metaphor often. We see hands grabbing for food, lifting rice to hungry mouths, hands caressing, worried hands nervously moving this way and that, working hands and the hands of a dead person. In “Distant Thunder,” they are meant to represent a circle of experience and life, both rewarding and cruel.

* Satyajit Ray’s “Distant Thunder” (1973) screens at 7 p.m. tonight at the Irvine Civic Center’s Training and Conference Center, 1 Civic Center Plaza, Irvine. Free. Information: (714) 724-6678.

MULTICULTURAL SERIES

City of Irvine Foreign Films:

Tonight: “Distant Thunder” (1973), directed by Satyajit Ray.

Oct. 14: “Ikiru” (1952), directed by Akira Kurosawa.

Oct. 21: “Los Olvidados” (1950), directed by Luis Bunuel.

Oct. 28: “Black Robe” (1991), directed by Bruce Beresford.

Nov. 4: “The Suiters” (1988), directed by Ghasem Ebrahimian.

Nov. 11: “Dragon Chow” (1987), directed by Jan Schutte.

All movies will be shown on large-screen video at 7 p.m. at the Irvine Civic Center’s Training and Conference Center, 1 Civic Center Plaza, Irvine. Free. Information: (714) 724-6678.