Pather Panchali
October 12th 2008 22:51
"Pather Panchali" is Satyajit Ray's debut feature, an adaptation of the classic Bengali novel of the same name, and widely considered to be the film that put India on the world cinema map.
It's a deeply moving, poetic production, with the rawness and invigoration of a director who felt the need to make the film after seeing "The Bicycle Thieves" in the cinema. He would pawn his records and sell his life insurance policy to finance the film, and it still would not be enough, taking three years to finish the film.
Ray was influenced by the Italian Neorealists, and the touch of the European movement is evident in "Pather Panchali" which used local Bengali-speaking actors to depict the life of a struggling rural family, beset by bad luck and misfortune. The youngest son, Apu, would be the focus of the 'Apu Trilogy' by Ray, one of the most revered series of films in cinematic history.
The father is a writer and a priest, dictated by his family line. Though the family lives in poverty, with the mother struggling to feed two children and an elderly aunt, the father has an indifferent sense of curiosity of the world, stating that God's will will be done.
It's painful to watch - the mother can only manage to feed her children rice, and she's ladled with insults and scorn when her daughter steals fruit from a nearby orchard. The father is gone for days at a time, working without pay, smoking tobacco and writing leisurely.
Even though it was his first feature, Ray and his cinematographer, Subrata Mitra, captured the outdoor scenes of the rural village with such definition and depth that city dwellers will feel a twinge of regret - we have all the luxuries you could imagine, but the simple act of running through a field of flowers, or dancing in the rain seems like a distant, receding pleasure.
Mitra was the first cinematographer to use the idea of 'bounce lighting', illuminating a scene by reflecting it off a white sheet, the diffuse light creating an incredible reality, as if the scene was lit by sunlight. The technique is common now, but compared to films of the time, "Pather Panchali" lends a heightened sense of reality to the tragic story. (Edit: it was pointed out to me by a few readers that Mitra only developed bounce lighting for Ray's second film, and not, in fact, for Pather Panchali)
No greater an authority than Akira Kurosawa said of Ray's work:
"Not to have seen the cinema of Satyajit Ray... is like existing in the world without having seen the sun and the moon."
Though I have seen the sun and the moon, or, at least, I think I have seen them, "Pather Panchali" hit me with a full wave of emotion and beauty, a perfect depiction of life in part of the world that doesn't exist for most of us - and we are merely a rumour to Apu and his family.
Acknowledgment: I watched this DVD on the new 42" LCD TV from LG. Even in black and white, the picture quality is crisp and clean!
I say: One of the finest movies ever made, in my opinion. Though it was criticized for its slow pace and depiction of poverty (by Francois Truffaut!), it is still revered as a film that captures the basic essence of humanity: life, death, the struggle to live and to rise up off the ground.
See it for: A young Ravi Shankar performed the soundtrack to the film, and it is glorious.
*this image is from the excellent review of the Apu trilogy on Hinduonnet.com
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Comment by David O'Connell
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Comment by Cibbuano
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Comment by Mike Crowl
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The only other thing I can remember was that the man left his child behind at some point, and then finally came back for him. (Had the wife died in the meantime?) Haven't a clue what the film was called, though!
Comment by RubySoho
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Comment by Cibbuano
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Ruby, I know, I was shocked. To be fair, my 'source' is Wikipedia, which says that Truffaut said 'I don't want to watch a bunch of peasants eating with their hands!'.
I hope it's not true... "The 400 Blows" is one of my favourite films, especially since it's such an earnest, intimate creation, much like "Pather Panchali".
Comment by Mike Crowl
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Cibbuano, thanks for that. I'll have to make some inquiries as to whether it's possible to get these movies on DVD. I was checking on imdb.com yesterday and was surprised to see how many movies Ray had made. 90% of them have never made it out here, as far as I know.
Comment by Cibbuano
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