I happened to watch a movie where the hero finished a fight and immediately and abruptly a song started, where the heroine and the hero were dancing. I have also seen a couple of craps, where the so called heroes would want to become superstars like Rajinikanth and make us watch something they call as movie. Ironically with so much of advancement in technology, though the Indian movie industry has seen a few excellent moviemakers and movies, most of the movies have been really pathetic and lacking in some aspect or the other. It’s all bundles of artificialness in the contemporary movie world.
More than 50 years ago there came this movie in Bengali , which was immeasurably beautiful and impeccable in its technical aspects. Pather Panchali left me stunned and I cannot wait too long to watch the second and third part of the Apu trilogy , this being the first. It will not be too difficult to understand why Sathyajit Ray is called as great, when you watch this movie.
The story is as simple as you can get – A village family, which mostly struggles and sometimes makes reasonable money for 2 good meals a day. The father is a poet and playwright. His fantasies make him leave the village to earn money. It takes long for him to return. In the meantime, his wife and two children – Durga and Apu, struggle to the core. When he returns there is a serious debacle waiting for him.
Durga is a petty thief and young Apu gets really matured towards the end. It is total fun watching these kids on screen. They play; they fight; and they show real love for each other. The mother is a typical Indian village homemaker. She pushes her husband to earn some money and takes real good care of her children. There is one more character – an old lady, who is called as ‘Auntie’ (of course in Bengali, I got to understand that only from the subtitles), will make you laugh as long as she is alive in the movie. Characters are etched to perfection.
The problem with the movie is the actors do not act; they live. I should probably rephrase that line too; it is not a movie, but real life in motion. You watch the movie and at any one instance if you feel that there is acting going on, and if you are not moved by every single scene, I shall pay you Rs. X (Comeon, lets start betting in the comments section). There is some beautiful music that runs on the background. Pandit Ravishankar gives us the real effect/emotions of the scenes, with the available instruments at that age. Wait, did I say the movie gives problem. Yes it does, I would want it to watch it again and again, and it keeps running on my mind every minute. Is that not a problem?
It might not be a good option to compare this movie, with contemporary movies. Not because, it was made 50 years ago. But because it is far far better than many of today’s movies, and might do some harm to the greatness of this one.
For the sake of finding faults, let me state just one and the only one I could find out after some real hard work of going through the movie again and analyzing it. I was not sure if women were educated in the interiors of village. But the mother could read the letters. Even, Durga was not sent to school. So a generation before, i.e. her mother had remote chances of being learned. I happened to read sureshmehcnit’s revu on this movie. The con’s column said ‘NA’ i.e. Not Applicable. I state that here because, only real Stupids like me would want to find fault with a chanceless movie like Pather Panchali .