Pather Panchali (1955)

Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

That was an excellent one.

Load of rubbish!!

Expected more

Even though I'm of Indian decent, I only visited India on holiday but I've lived in an Indian community in South Africa. This movie reminds me of my childhood, the way the old aunties and grannies used to be in our Indian neighbourhoods but it wasn't as rural as it was in India and my generation was a few decades later. Yet, I related very closely to this film.I grew up watching many Bollywood films in our family, with our parents and I'd yearn for the quality Bollywood of older times. Satyajit Ray doesn't provide that Bollywood nostalgia but he provides total realism that I haven't seen in Indian cinema - to his level. I mostly love the way his characters are free to walk around the rural areas and their simple pleasures in the field, going toward the train and playing with water. Being about children, it is playful but also very serious with the way Ray depicts the grandmother and her relationship with the children's mother. I've been calling her grandmother, but i wasn't sure if she was just an old lady/aunty in the village or a blood relative. I might've missed that but it's all the same as she was treated as a relative and I think in Indian communities they could've adopted this responsibility to take care of her anyway. Ray isn't sympathetic to his characters, he shows us their ugly and beautiful side. He does this with the mother and children. He exposes some real weaknesses and his coverage of Apu is very dreamy, seemingly like himself. For me Pather Panchali is the best of the Apu Trilogy because its very real, but it's not easy to get going because it was Ray's first film and he was notably still mastering his craft at that stage.

Rating it 10/10, or rating scale is useless to tell how great this work is!Overwhelming. Eloquent. Deep. People say this movie as a Indian version of Bicycle Thieves. But I would say this is more than that, very different and captures the emotions in the extremities of life, everything feels so real that one could imagine about (something similar as in Premchand's Godaan novel). This is the first movie of Satyajit Ray I have watched yet, and I must watch all of his lifelong work. And this feeling indulges my mind to read Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay's original novel.Superb acting by every character, so strong, so real! Still camera, use of natural lights and shadows, makes you think how intelligent was the mind behind it. Sensitive story plot, and attention to every minute detail is phenomenal.This movie is a remarkable and classic story which tells both how beautiful and worst is life in very bad and in extremely bad situations, and flows in different ages as time passes.I can watch it for tens of times if I could make time for it!As a note, Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon Movie is not so different, but Pather Panchali feels at home and heart touching.A recommended one for classical movie lovers.

I can't believe I waited so long to watch this movie. I recently rented it on Google Movies with some credits I had, half-way into the movie and I regretted my decision to have not purchased it outright. This is not just a movie it is an event in cinematic history you have to experience. You feel an unreal connection with all the characters and they linger with you long after the end credits. I don't know if this movie will ever leave me, I certainly hope not. I understand now why they call Satyajit Raj one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. All the actors have acted amazingly for being amateurs. I simply cannot forget Durga or the old aunt, Indir Thakrun. Chunibala Devi, who plays the aging aunt delivers one of the best performances I have ever seen. Watch this movie and let it sink in. You will simply be unable to comprehend all the different emotions you encounter throughout its run time.I will wait some time before watching the rest of the trilogy. This is way too much for me right now.

The above title is not mine, rather than the great giant of cinema, Akira Kurosawa's. (creator of The Seven Samurai, Rashomon.) I can't help but quote a few from Andrew Robinson's Book "The Apu Trilogy - making of an epic" "(after describing the 'wobbling sweet seller' sequence) The brief wordless interlude of lyrical happiness belongs uniquely to the cinema; it is the kind of peak in Ray's work that prompted Kurosawa to conclude;'Not to have seen the cinema of RAY means existing in the world without seeing sun and moon.'" What can the 'humble' I say about one of the all time best films produced by world. There are lyricism, a lot place of poetry, from Marie Seaton to our critic Amitava Chattapadhyay..they are the renowned man who described about this. One can read the books by those I've mentioned, and also by Andrew Robinson's. Personally I can say, Ray is the man from whom I learned everything and still I'm learning. I'm learning not only how to read a film, but also how to write English! I am far younger than him, probably my age is similar to age of his grandson, but he's my Teacher, of all kind..from cinema to literature to painting to photography and music. He's the man whom I respect most.