KobusAdAstra 'Pather Panchali' is an impressive film about life in a poor part of Indian subcontinent, where the people live a very basic life, and every day is a struggle.Meet the small Bengal family whose life is depicted in the film: Hardworking, conscientious mother, Sarbojaya; her dreamer husband Harihar, who writes stories that don't get used; their first-born, a girl, Burga who nicks fruit from the neighbour's orchards. And then the young boy, Apu, who goes to school and gets to learn to read and write. Living with the family at times is their elderly aunt.At insistence from his wife, Harihar gets a job, but only gets paid after three months. His wife is concerned about the lack of maintenance work at their home, but his reply always is that there is no money. But, incidentally, enough money for his tobacco. He eventually realizes that he must increase his income and leaves to find work in a large town.Months go by without a word from him, the family runs out of food and the wife has to sell her precious silverware to get food. When the husband eventually arrives back home, he was in for an unpleasant surprise...The film has many elements: it highlights the huge difference between how men and women were treated. A boy gets preferential treatment, gets to go to school and gets better food than his female siblings. The girls stay at home to assist their mothers with housekeeping chores. The film also effectively shows the dynamics between the poor and the very poor.This kind of subject matter can easily be sentimentalized, but it is handled with restraint. The natural cast is amazing, the black and white cinematography and sound track excellent. A masterpiece. 9/10.

gavin6942 Impoverished priest Harihar Ray (Kanu Bannerjee),dreaming of a better life for himself and his family, leaves his rural Bengal village in search of work.The realist narrative style of "Pather Panchali" was influenced by Italian neorealism and the works of French director Jean Renoir. In 1949 Renoir came to Calcutta to shoot his film "The River" (1951). Ray, a founding member of the Calcutta Film Society (established in 1947), helped him scout for locations in the countryside. When Ray told him about his longstanding wish to film Pather Panchali, Renoir encouraged him to proceed.I absolutely love Renoir's "River", so I am pleased to see there is a connection between that film and this one. Unfortunately for me ,I saw a copy that was less than great. It looked pretty washed out. The 2015 Criterion version is no doubt the must-see edition, but I did not have it available to me.

Sayantan Dutta 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.

ozjeppe Authentic account of the life of a poor, rural Indian family's life and hardships during a few year's time. Universal in theme but doesn't really get gripping until the final 15 min's during a memorable rain storm. Feels almost like a student project in its utter simplicity, technical limitations and primitive montage storytelling... which at times makes it a bit hard to follow in exactly what's going on (some bits are just frame filling and have no cause-and-effect whatsoever). I read after watching it that the father is a priest, and that it's supposed to be set in the early 1900's... gee - good to know, because the movie itself certainly doesn't tell me so! But most of the time it's just unclear if we have a main character: The mother? The daughter? No, apparently (again, after reading more about it afterward) it's supposed to be Apu, the son - which is weird since he honestly doesn't get more attention - OR personal character development than anyone else!I badly want to be more generous (like when you have to be nice about commenting a small kid's poor, ugly doodle drawings) because of its earnestness and alleged historical influence/importance to Indian cinema. But I can't - because it's simply not good enough. It's more an exotic rarity/half-documentary than being a particularly good movie. Do I feel like watching the sequels? Not much.4/10 from Ozjeppe.