Director: Satyajit Ray
Writers: Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay, Satyajit Ray, Kanailal Basu
Photography: Subrata Mitra
Music: Ravi Shankar
Editor: Dulal Dutta
Cast: Pinaki Sengupta, Karuna Bannerjee, Kanu Bannerjee, Smaran Ghosal, Ramani Sengupta
It has been nearly 10 years since I last revisited Pather Panchali, the first movie in director and cowriter Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy, but I see that the second, Aparajito, picks up within days if not hours of Pather Panchali. The Apu trilogy is a long continuous story—it begins on the day of Apu’s birth and continues into his adulthood in the third and final installment, The World of Apu. Aparajito sees the greatest changes in Apu, necessitating two actors as he grows from a boy into an adolescent and then young man. After the death of Apu’s sister in Pather Panchali, the family, now only three, leaves their home village for the big city of Varanasi (called Benares in the movie). Apu’s father cobbles together income as he can. His ambition is to be a literary writer, creating plays, poetry, and fiction, but he also serves as a community priest and picks up agricultural work as he can. In Varanasi, earning money has become the first order of business to get his family back on its feet. Even providing adequate food is becoming a problem. Sometimes he must travel and be away from his family for significant parts of a year.
While making Pather Panchali, Ray reportedly had no idea of extending the story beyond that movie. But it proved so popular he was able to get funding within a year to make Aparajito. Both are based on popular autobiographical novels by the Bengali writer Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. For Aparajito, however, Ray took artistic liberties with the source story that proved unpopular in India even though these two movies in many ways established Ray’s stature internationally. I don’t know the novels and basically admire both movies equally, as well as The World of Apu. According to the critical survey at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? Aparajito has the lowest regard—no matter how movie trilogies may be structured, it does seem like the second is often judged the weakest, perhaps because it is a kind of bridge piece.
It has been nearly 10 years since I last revisited Pather Panchali, the first movie in director and cowriter Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy, but I see that the second, Aparajito, picks up within days if not hours of Pather Panchali. The Apu trilogy is a long continuous story—it begins on the day of Apu’s birth and continues into his adulthood in the third and final installment, The World of Apu. Aparajito sees the greatest changes in Apu, necessitating two actors as he grows from a boy into an adolescent and then young man. After the death of Apu’s sister in Pather Panchali, the family, now only three, leaves their home village for the big city of Varanasi (called Benares in the movie). Apu’s father cobbles together income as he can. His ambition is to be a literary writer, creating plays, poetry, and fiction, but he also serves as a community priest and picks up agricultural work as he can. In Varanasi, earning money has become the first order of business to get his family back on its feet. Even providing adequate food is becoming a problem. Sometimes he must travel and be away from his family for significant parts of a year.
While making Pather Panchali, Ray reportedly had no idea of extending the story beyond that movie. But it proved so popular he was able to get funding within a year to make Aparajito. Both are based on popular autobiographical novels by the Bengali writer Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. For Aparajito, however, Ray took artistic liberties with the source story that proved unpopular in India even though these two movies in many ways established Ray’s stature internationally. I don’t know the novels and basically admire both movies equally, as well as The World of Apu. According to the critical survey at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? Aparajito has the lowest regard—no matter how movie trilogies may be structured, it does seem like the second is often judged the weakest, perhaps because it is a kind of bridge piece.
Aparajito is fairly considered just such a bridge, certainly in terms of Apu’s development and growth from boy to man. Note that “Aparajito” is not an affectionate form of “Apu,” as I have tended to assume, but rather translates to “the unvanquished.” That’s putting the best light on it, because in fact there is a lot of vanquishing going on in this picture. While Pather Panchali has a somewhat unusual drama in the death of Apu’s sister, the drama in Aparajito—the death of his parents, one at a time—is much more universal, if sadly accelerated by the harsh conditions of living for the underclasses in India. Everyone dies far too young. The mother (Karuna Bannerjee, who is excellent) spends much of her screen time on domestic chores such as preparing food, alternating with vocal worries in discussions with her husband and others about making ends meet on their meager means. The father (Kanu Bannerjee, also very good) is of more good cheer and tries to calm her concerns, but his situation is better simply because of his gendered advantages as a man, and it’s still not really that good. He’s just more willing to accept it with equanimity, arguably not such a good trait (arguable both ways actually).
There is an interesting, sort of proto-feminist point that Ray seems aware of on some level, but he’s more interested in exploring a Western-oriented Freudian dynamic between mother and son. Still, a lot of her anxieties and clinginess toward father and later son are more direct result of her utter powerlessness in this society. She has to depend on their doing the right thing, which they do in a general way, but they have little power themselves. It’s not easy for anyone around here. Somewhat ironically, perhaps, the mother assumes Apu will become a priest like his father. It’s what she knows, even though it didn’t work out so well.
But Apu has an instinct for surviving in the modern world and wants an education—specifically, he wants to study “the sciences,” presumably for the lucrative engineering work of the 20th century and beyond. He does well in school, grows tall—Smaran Ghosal appears as the gawky elder Apu to Pinaki Sengupta’s big-eyed boy—and wins a scholarship to study in Calcutta. By this time Apu and his mother have relocated to another village to live with an uncle, and she will not be able to travel with Apu, who finds himself exhausted anyway between his studies and working to support himself. He can’t be there for her when she sickens and ultimately dies. The movie ends with Apu entirely alone in the world.
I’ll have more to say next week when I take a look at The World of Apu, which I haven’t seen for many years and don’t recall well (except that I liked it). On the big list at TSPDT, Pather Panchali ranks way highest in the trilogy, presently at #43. The World of Apu is second, at #309, and then Aparajito at #509. I thought Aparajito was nearly as good as Pather Panchali, so looking forward to the revisit with The World of Apu.
There is an interesting, sort of proto-feminist point that Ray seems aware of on some level, but he’s more interested in exploring a Western-oriented Freudian dynamic between mother and son. Still, a lot of her anxieties and clinginess toward father and later son are more direct result of her utter powerlessness in this society. She has to depend on their doing the right thing, which they do in a general way, but they have little power themselves. It’s not easy for anyone around here. Somewhat ironically, perhaps, the mother assumes Apu will become a priest like his father. It’s what she knows, even though it didn’t work out so well.
But Apu has an instinct for surviving in the modern world and wants an education—specifically, he wants to study “the sciences,” presumably for the lucrative engineering work of the 20th century and beyond. He does well in school, grows tall—Smaran Ghosal appears as the gawky elder Apu to Pinaki Sengupta’s big-eyed boy—and wins a scholarship to study in Calcutta. By this time Apu and his mother have relocated to another village to live with an uncle, and she will not be able to travel with Apu, who finds himself exhausted anyway between his studies and working to support himself. He can’t be there for her when she sickens and ultimately dies. The movie ends with Apu entirely alone in the world.
I’ll have more to say next week when I take a look at The World of Apu, which I haven’t seen for many years and don’t recall well (except that I liked it). On the big list at TSPDT, Pather Panchali ranks way highest in the trilogy, presently at #43. The World of Apu is second, at #309, and then Aparajito at #509. I thought Aparajito was nearly as good as Pather Panchali, so looking forward to the revisit with The World of Apu.
Shout out for the Ravi Shankar soundtrack to the Apu trilogy. On some kind of short list of my favorite soundtrack music.
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