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"It is an ironic comment that the major audiences for Satyajit Ray's mature works are in the West, whilst commercial interests in India limit them to a small coterie: yet his children*s films have a large audience in India against a smaller following in the West. The success of his children's films in India is really part of his family tradition (grandfather and father were superb writers for young people and today Ray edits Sandesh the children's magazine founded by his grandfather). Ray describes The Kingdom of Diamonds as a Fantasy with music', to which parents will go willingly It is asequel to the popular The Adventures of Goopy and Bagha. Written in rhymed couplets, it has a Gilbertian atmosphere and is his first overt declaration of a simple political credo. Visually superb, with instantly remembered music combining Western influences — including Mozart — with traditional Raga, it is Ray in an ebullient mood, having thoroughly enjoyed discarding his austere literary humanistic probings into complex relationships."
John Warrington London Film Festival