Pather Panchali (1955)

The debut of Satyajit Ray behind a camera can be easily considered one of the most important movies in the history of Indian cinema.

It is the first movie of the Apu Trilogy, a series of three coming-of-age movie set in the Indian state of Bengal. Pather Panchali is heavily influenced by Italian neorealism, and the narrative follows the birth and childhood of Apu, a boy who lives in poverty with his family in a house near a forest. The movie does not have a structured plot, it just shows little fragments of daily life in rural India – children playing games, animals, street peddlers, natural calamities, death – that happen one after the other without continuity, kept together by the poetry of the director, the photography of Subrata Mitra and by the amazing soundtrack composed by the legendary Ravi Shankar, sitar composer of Hindustani classical music.

The movie was made in three years with very little financing, low quality gears and non- professional actors; Satyajit Ray refused any compromise by renouncing to financing opportunities that would have changed the plot of the movie. Actually, the way of filming of Ray was very modern, and he depicts life of the poor in a way that recalls a documentary, very different from the usual melodrama that were popular in India at the time.

Fakta
Originaltittel: Pather Panchali
Regissør: Satyajit Ray
År: 1955
Land: India
Format: DVD
Språk: Bengali
Tekstet: Engelsk
Spilletid: 115 min

Pris: 40,- / 60,-
+ kontingent 25,- (kontingent betales ved førstegangsbesøk og er semesterbasert)

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