S01E01 Reflections in a Lens
How can you capture in the lens of a film camera the essence of a country so diverse, so variegated, and so paradoxical as India?
Phantom India
S01E05: Invisible Frontiers
Although officially abolished, the caste system has not ceased to exert a strong influence on Indian social life. It is not a problem of colour, race nor even of class. It is far subtler and harder to pin down, as Louis Malle discovers as soon as he starts to ask those awkward questions about caste that Indians are reluctant to answer. For the Hindu, division into castes is like a law of nature, a logical expression of his vision of the Universe. Castes are religious boundaries that run through heads and through hearts but not along the ground; they are those invisible frontiers of the mind that to India are so natural and to the West so incomprehensible.
Overview
Louis Malle called his gorgeous and groundbreaking Phantom India the most personal film of his career. And this extraordinary journey to India, originally shown as a miniseries on European television, is infused with his sense of discovery, as well as occasional outrage, intrigue, and joy.
Episodes
S01E02 A Barbarian in Madras
Southern India pretends to know nothing about the North. Its language is different, its very nature too. In Madras Louis Malle discovers a striking example of that world of opposites to be found in traditional...
S01E03 Holy India
Louis Malle finds a devotion to a spiritual life that transcends the poverty of the material one and discovers that in a country as crowded as India, religion is the one way for the individual...
S01E04 Shadow Without Substance
Drifting at random through the numberless villages of the South, Louis Malle finds himself in a timeless, fantastic, and to a western eye, almost surrealist world. Kerala is like a dream, with its exotic lagoons,...
S01E05 Invisible Frontiers
Although officially abolished, the caste system has not ceased to exert a strong influence on Indian social life. It is not a problem of colour, race nor even of class. It is far subtler and...
S01E06 Cults, Creeds and Clans
Turning aside from the traditional India of the Hindus, Louis Malle pans his camera on to the India of forgotten tribes and tiny sects. He discovers two versions of Utopia: one, the Ashram at Pondicherry...
S01E07 Where East Goes West
Bombay. It's the last lap of Louis Malle 's journey through India and already it smacks of the West. Bombay is a city on the move, in the middle of an economic boom. Parsee industrialists,...
Cast
Louis Malle
Self - Narrator
