Pather Panchali (1955)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Calling Satyajit Ray a genius is a mere understatement. Can someone believe that Pather Panchali is a debut for this creator? Pather Panchali, is truly a remarkable masterpiece that is carved with brilliant film making. It leaves us awestruck and scene by scene is a sculpture. I do not recollect when was the last time that I watched an Indian film that portrays reality to this extent. It's been almost 60 years since the release of Pather Panchali but no other movie can inch closer to this marvel. Epic performance from the entire cast. Editing was top notch, so was the cinematography. If you want to become a film maker, you don't have to go to a film school, just watch the trilogy. This movie is very precious for the Indian cinema and will be cherished forever.

For a black-and-white movie released 60 years ago, Pather Panchali was fairly engaging because it managed to keep me glued to the screen for two hours.However, it is not a complete story; it's more like the beginning of one. That could be because it's the first in a trilogy, but I feel that despite that, it would have been better for it to have followed at least roughly the traditional structure of beginning-middle-and- end, even if it was meant to be an adaptation of only the first part of the novel Pather Panchali.I didn't give it a rating of less than 7 stars because the focus and message of the movie were executed pretty well. The focus was upon childhood spent in poverty in a developing country, the message being that childhood is universal.In any case, Pather Panchali surely helped me achieve my initial purpose of, being from India, understanding Indian cultures different from my own, in this case the culture of Hindu Bengal.A note about the subtitles: English subtitles are great, but if you're like me and speak an Indian language that isn't Bengali, try finding subtitles in them instead of in English. I found Hindu subtitles online and they were much more accurate and culturally- appropriate than English ones, and using them challenged and consequently improved my ability to read Hindi.

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.

I love foreign films because they tell the truth of the human condition unlike Hollywood-studio movies that usually sugar-coat life. Foreign films like The 400 Blows, Summer, Ikiru, Wild Strawberries, Early Spring, Late Autumn--all had a profound effect on me. They were like the independent films of today.I should like Pather Panchali, but I didn't. Yes, it told the truth of the human condition. Yes, it had beautiful cinematography. Yes, it had an effective soundtrack. But that was it. It didn't have anything else. Let me put it this way--it didn't emotionally move me like the above- mentioned films. Why? Probably because of a lack of character development. The father is hardly even in the film. The mother is a witch to her daughter. The aunt is a caricature of an old woman who means well. Same goes for the daughter. The son comes late in the film and basically copies whatever the daughter does. The neighbors are like the bad people in a chorus of a Greek tragedy. How can anyone be emotionally moved by characters like these?! They were all pretty much one-dimensional. And to top all that off--there was no plot! Well, I wasn't surprised to see that because how can you have a plot when you have only static characters. I do not recommend this film.