For twenty whole years of my life I lived in ignorance without having seen the sun or the moon but today I have finally seen the Ray and now I feel holy and blessed. Akira Kurusawa, the man behind Japanese classics like Rashomon and Ran, said years ago that living in a world without having seen a Satyajit Ray movie is like living without having seen the sun or the moon; almost every movie I’ve seen feels the effect after living in Ray’s world. It is a transcendent experience to watch the debut of the late Bengali director, Pather Panchali, one that strikes deep into the core of your soul in a way that makes you feel afterwards as if you have lived two lives: one before seeing Pather Panchali and one after. . Achieve the remarkable feat of invoking your senses to a higher state of consciousness; the experience of watching Pather Panchali is akin to reading Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace or James Joyce’s Portrait of a Young Artist or some of the greatest achievements of William Blake or Emily Dickinson, or watching Meryl Streep’s iconic turn as Sophie Zawistowski in Sophie’s Choice. The sensation is so powerful that it took me over an hour to return to my original state; The hardest part for me was returning the DVD to the movie rental store because I knew the true value of what I had. May God bless the man who recognized the value of Pather Panchali years ago and preserved the original copies so that the world today may have the chance to be transported to the precious little magical world of Apu, the film’s protagonist.
This little world is black and white to the naked eye, but the film is so richly shot and composed that it colors our minds with the most exquisite palette. The opening credits, which would not be understood by anyone who cannot read Bengali, still captures the spirit of Pather Panchali through Ravi Shankar’s playful, whimsical and yearning tabla rhythms and sitar strumming; only Michael Danna could mesmerize us on 2012’s Life of Pi with an equally evocative score. Ray’s world begins not with Apu or his sister Durga, but with the film’s most antagonistic character, the spiteful neighbor of Apu’s family who is worshiping the tulsi plant early in the morning. Satyajit follows her when he notices that Durga, Apu’s unborn sister, is stealing fruits from her yard. Durga runs through the forest to her shanty house and delivers the fruits to her senescent great-aunt Indir Thakrun after saving the milk for her three little cats of hers. Ray then turns to the upset neighbor who is beating Durga and cursing her family for raising a thief; in an excellently composed sequence, Ray is able to capture it perfectly, the lady listens on the balcony of the house next door listening to her and Durga’s pregnant mother, Sarbajaya, and her empathetic friend fetching water from the well behind the neighbor’s house, very close to the woman’s earshot. bitter rant. Sarbajaya confronts her daughter for stealing fruits and then chides Indir Thakrun for encouraging Durga’s bad behavior. Indir Thakrun leaves the house temporarily, frustrated by Sarbajaya’s troubles, but returns soon as Sarbajaya gives birth to Apu.
Then a couple of dissolves takes us a few years and we see Apu now as an innocent school going boy who is very fond of his sister Durga. His family can barely provide for his basic needs, and Apu’s father, mild-mannered Harihar Roy, is too remiss in asking for his due from his employer; he is also not capable of doing much as a playwright. This situation makes it especially difficult for Sarbajaya to manage household needs, as she herself does not like to beg others for monetary or other help; therefore, she is even tougher on Indir Thakrun, who sometimes, like Durga, often takes food from Sarbajaya’s kitchen without her permission. There are two sequences at different points in the film that include Harihar and Sarbajaya; both keep the same posture in the sequences but while in the first sequence, Harihar gives a more optimistic image to Sarbajaya to appease her, in the second he sounds less enthusiastic while Sarbajaya seems more worried about her future. Apu is still too young to be affected by family problems and we only see him enjoying his childhood days with Durga and her friends. Durga is very supportive of everyone, including her mother, who reacts violently towards Durga when the same neighbor at first accuses Durga of stealing his daughter’s bead necklace. The family’s problems persist after Harihar travels to a nearby city to look for a job and tragedies occur one after another; The family’s only hope, as Harihar says in his letters to Sarbajaya after leaving, is to leave everything in the hands of God’s Grace, keeping in mind that everything happens for the best.
For Satyajit Ray, every image and every sound, both on and off the screen, is important. It’s his ability as a film visionary that makes the film flow so smoothly that you’re surprised to hear it’s his debut film. I read one of his books, a compilation of film essays and theories, and he mentions that his crew with no experience of his had not even handled a camera before filming Pather Panchali, so the first half was a bit slow. little choppy in editing. I have no idea what you’re talking about here because, in my eyes, each image came together perfectly. For me, I was not capturing images but creating images on film; it’s hard to express how beautifully Sarbajaya’s gradual collapse is captured on film without using superlatives. And the cool image of him is complemented by Ravi Shankar’s background score, which includes the sound of bells ringing during a light-hearted sequence with a candy vendor and also during some of the haunting moments; It reminded me of Edgar Allan Poe’s brilliant poem The Bells. Pather Panchali is scintillating and Satyajit is the Ray of Light.
