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Bookmark this pagePather Panchali (1955)
Director: Satyajit Ray
Movie review
From Time Out London
It’s 50 years since the late, great Bengali writer-director Satyajit Ray made his debut with this, the first and finest installment of his ground-breaking ‘Apu Trilogy’. It was the first Indian movie to attract attention in the West, and if your experience of subcontinental cinema extends no further than Bollywood’s romantic musicals, it’s not just the film’s enduring status as a landmark of world cinema that makes it essential viewing. It remains a miracle of lyrical realism: the detailed, documentary-style observation of village life as experienced by young Apu, his sister Durga, their parents and ancient grandma is inflected by a marvellous use of motifs (trains beckoning to another, industrialised urban world, water as a symbol of cyclical regeneration) to turn a simple rites-of-passage story into pure poetry. A hymn to curiosity, courage and conscience, it introduces Apu as an opening eye, innocent of adult anxieties but alert to adventure and, finally, moral discovery. Ravi Shankar’s music is great too. A masterpiece, inarguably.Author: GA
Time Out London Issue 1827: August 24-31 2005
User reviews of this film
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- D Nair said...
- Posted on Nov 17 2007 18:38 Absolutely! It's the Greatest film i've set my eyes on...stunning brilliant ...superlatives exhaust describing it
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Cast & crew
Director: Satyajit Ray
Cast: Kanu Bannerjee, Karuna Bannerjee, Uma Das Gupta, Subir Bannerjee, Chunibala Devi full cast
Duration: 115 mins
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