Review of Pather Panchali (1955) by Jens T — 27 Nov 2011

After being an uncredited assistant director to Jean Renoir in The River. Renoir encouraged Satyajit Ray to work on his ideas for a film. So in 1955 he finally pulled of his very first film Pather Panchali. Which uses real location and amateur actors and is spoken in the minority language Bengali. Pather Panchali is the first film in the trilogy called "The Apu Trilogy" about the life of Apu Ray.

This film is about his early life as a five year old boy growing up in the pour and dirty village, Nischindipur in West Bengal. Apu lives wiith his mom, his father who's a priest, but dreams about being a writer. His elder sister Durga is always in trouble and always steels food from the neighbors which she gives to her old mothers aunt who also lives with them. Poverty and their living condition isn't a very plesant life and nature are in more control, specially when the great monsoon accrue every year.

My opinion about this film is that catches the perfect essence of poverty and rustic environment that many associate with India and it's large population. But the story might seems a little rustic itself. I wish that I could say I truly liked but the fact is that I find it sometimes a little boring and long and some times I don't care for neither of the characters. But I give it a marginal thumbs up.