About

The Philosopher's Stone was shot during a break in filming The Music Room 1958 and, as a comedy, marked a dramatic shift in tone to Ray's previous films. The film is a humorous look at the perils of valuing wealth as an end in itself. An elderly bank clerk, Paresh Dutta played by the eminently expressive Tulsi Chakraborty, learns he may soon be out of a job. As he dejectedly makes his way home he has the enormous good fortune of finding a stone that can turn metal into gold. A comic, yet biting, social commentary on the vacuousness of the rich and powerful within Indian society, Ray's asinine everyman Paresh is painted with sympathy as he navigates the idiosyncrasies of upper class culture.