Description

Pather Panchali 1955
Not Rated | 2h 5min | Drama | 26 August 1955 (India)
Storyline:The story of a young boy, Apu, and life in his small Indian village. His parents are quite poor – his father Harihar, a writer and poet, gave away the family’s fruit orchard to settle his brother’s debts. His sister Durga and an old aunt also still lives with them. His mother Sarbojaya bears the brunt of the family’s situation. She scrapes by and sells her personal possessions to put food on the table and has to bear the taunts of her neighbors as Durga is always stealing fruit from their orchard. Things get worse when Harihar disappears for five months and Durga falls ill. Even after Harihar returns, the family is left with few alternatives.User review:I don’t know how even 6.4% of the female voters could have given this movie a 2!!!!! This was Ray’s first movie, but his economy of dialog, his synchronization and sympathy with India’s rural life is incredible. So little said, yet so much! Apu and Durga following the sweetmeat seller, the scene where they run through a “kash” field….superb, the work of a real artist, a master. The film develops its characters and the atmosphere slowly and resolutely. The narrative builds up to a powerful climax. Ray had an ancient camera while shooting this movie, did it matter? No. His expression and technique was more than sound, although this was a maiden venture.Some critics found(and still find, I might add) the film to be too slow. Satyajit Ray wrote about the slow pace – “The cinematic material dictated a style to me, a very slow rhythm determined by nature, the landscape, the country. The script had to retain some of the rambling quality of the novel because that in itself contained a clue to the authenticity: life in a poor Bengali village does ramble.”There you are, if you have not watched this movie, you’ll probably missed the greatest movie made on Indian rural life. That’s why Akira Kurosawa said of him:”To have not seen the films of Ray is to have lived in the world without ever having seen the moon and the sun”
Director: Satyajit Ray
Writers: Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay (novel), Satyajit Ray (screenplay)
Stars: Kanu Bannerjee, Karuna Bannerjee, Subir Banerjee
Country: India
Language: Bengali
Release Date: 26 August 1955 (India)
Also Known As: Pather Panchali: Song of the Little Road
Filming Locations: Boral, West Bengal, India
IMDB Profile tt0048473

Pather Panchali (1955)

1955-08-26

8.2

Director: Satyajit Ray

Writers: Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Satyajit Ray

Stars: Kanu Bannerjee, Karuna Bannerjee, Subir Banerjee

Summary: Impoverished priest Harihar Ray, dreaming of a better life for himself and his family, leaves his rural Bengal village in search of work.

Also known as: Pather Panchali (1955) on DVD