Pather Panchali (Movie)

Satyajit Ray Image via Wikipedia

Wanted to watch this movie since ages. Finally watched it couple of months back. Satyajit Ray has been one of my favourite authors. Practically learned English to read his translations of Feluda and Professor Shonku. A major person responsible for my fascination towards Kolkotta and Bengalis. Anyways, wanted to to see what kind of cinema he created.

I like fast paced movies. Hence, I was a bit bored in the initial part of the movie. While most of the fast paced movies are full of dialogues, Ray uses silence as an important tool to convey moods and feelings, and to me he really seemed very good at doing so. The story is very simple, no 'filmy' dialogues. The artists who play the character are chosen very wisely. Read somewhere how much trouble Ray went through to find right actors for characters.

What stood out for me were 3-4 scenes which made movie really worth watching. One of them was when the child character Apu is being readied to go to school by his mother and sister. The expression at around 10:20 tells it all. NO WORDS NECESSARY. The scene where Durga and Apu chase the sweet selling guy was also brilliant. After watching movie read its review and was very happy to find that both of those scene were specially mentioned.

In conclusion, though I love fast paced movies, this slow poetic movie did leave a lasting impression on me. If I was given a possibility to have dinner with a person across ages, I would choose Ray. Want to watch the remaining two parts of Trilogy, read that Apu trilogy is one of the most famous one in history of cinema, each outclassing the previous one.