Varanasi, also known as Benares or Kashi, is more than just a city in northern India — it is a symbol of spiritual endurance, a sacred geography where life and death intertwine on the banks of the Ganges River. Known as one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Varanasi has attracted pilgrims, seekers, artists, and philosophers for millennia. It is no surprise, then, that filmmakers have been equally drawn to this city, seeking to capture its atmosphere of transcendence and paradox.
Cinema, as a visual and emotional medium, is uniquely equipped to explore Varanasi’s mysticism — from the ritualistic to the philosophical. Over the decades, both Indian and international filmmakers have attempted to portray the city not only as a physical space but as a metaphysical experience. These films range from observational documentaries to narrative dramas, and from experimental projects to spiritual pilgrimages captured on camera.
Documenting the Sacred: The Non-Fictional Gaze
Documentary films have been among the most effective ways to explore the rhythms of Varanasi. Early ethnographic films focused on ritual practices such as cremations at Manikarnika Ghat, river worship (Ganga Aarti), and ascetic lifestyles. These works often relied on long takes, minimal narration, and ambient sound to convey the immersive nature of sacred space.
Among notable examples is “River of Faith” (PBS, 2007), which examines the centrality of the Ganges to Hindu belief, and “Short Cut to Nirvana: Kumbh Mela” (2004), which, although primarily about the Kumbh Mela festival, includes significant footage of Varanasi’s spiritual vibrancy. More poetic is the Italian documentary “Verso Benares” (2022), which avoids exposition and instead presents a contemplative visual meditation on the city, echoing the silence and rhythm of ritual.
Varanasi in Indian Narrative Cinema
Indian filmmakers have also used Varanasi as a setting to explore themes of spiritual transformation, death, and liberation (moksha). In Satyajit Ray’s Aparajito (1956), the second film of the Apu Trilogy, the protagonist and his mother live temporarily in Varanasi. The film’s portrayal of the city is intimate and reverent, presenting its ghats and temples as part of the emotional fabric of loss and awakening.
More recently, Neeraj Ghaywan’s Masaan (2015) stands out as a modern classic. Set largely in Varanasi, the film navigates love, grief, caste, and redemption in the context of traditional values and modern change. It avoids exoticism and instead portrays the city as a living, breathing place — mystical not in its strangeness, but in its capacity to hold contradiction.
Another significant work is Banaras: A Mystic Love Story (2006), directed by Pankaj Parashar. While leaning into melodrama and mysticism, the film emphasizes the tension between spiritual calling and personal identity, using the city’s visual allure as an emotional backdrop.
International Interpretations of the Mystical City
Western filmmakers have often approached Varanasi with awe, sometimes verging on orientalism, but at times with genuine curiosity and reverence. French writer Pierre Loti’s 1903 book L’Inde (sans les Anglais) helped shape a European literary fascination with India as a timeless, sacred space. While not a filmmaker himself, his approach to India as a spiritual metaphor echoes through many later filmic interpretations.
International travel documentaries and spiritual-themed films have included Varanasi as a key site in their quests for “meaning” or “enlightenment.” These films tend to focus on the city’s visual surrealism — the cremation fires, saffron-robed sadhus, and river rituals — but the best among them resist fetishizing and instead invite the viewer into a deeper state of observation and stillness.
Filming the Invisible
What unites all these cinematic portrayals of Varanasi is an attempt to capture the invisible — that sense of otherworldliness that pervades the city. Varanasi is not just a subject but a presence. Filmmakers who succeed in portraying it understand that the sacred is not only in what can be shown, but in what can be felt. In this way, films about Varanasi are not only about India — they are about human longing, impermanence, and the search for something beyond.