Pather Panchali (Song of the little Road) - Satyajit Ray
By Samakshi | July 9th, 2008 | Category: Cinema, Indian Cinema |
Pather Panchali (Song of the road) the first in the pack of Satyajit Ray’s celebrated ‘Apu Trilogy’ is a vividly mellifluent poem come alive in the form of daintily impeccable pictures. Rarely can a film maker capture the substance of every day life, and define it with the niceties of unfortunate domestic circumstances, raw and carefree childhoods, ancestral and rural set ups, charming and resonant characters - all with a simplicity that is eminently etching, consequently if Ray stands at the pedestal of impactful film making, it is generously for this reason.
Pather Panchali shows a Brahmin family of Harihar Ray, floating on the shaky logs of poverty, desperately trying to make ends meet, as Harihar goes away to town after surrendering his passion of writing to a reality that demands money and more mechanical jobs. Sarbojaya his wife remains; bogged down by the weight of financial pressures and family responsibilities, she singly drags the survival of one day to another. Lending only a heavier hand to the already wobbly household is Indir, an exceedingly old but unfussy woman who spends her time singing lullabies to the children, stealing spices for her still alive palatal pleasures and awaiting a final end to her much prolonged life. And then there are the truly dulcet tunes to this song of the road- those that emanate exuberantly from Durga and Apu, the delightful children of this household!
Ray’s film is not so much about its story and plot as it is about sensitively subtle and penetrating emotions. Leading itself to a catastrophic latter part that manages to leave you with a persistent feeling of pathos and reflection, Pather Panchali is otherwise an unhurried afternoon dream that lets you loll about the uncomplicated elements to life - the radiant smile of Durga welcoming the monsoon, Apu’s delightful jig to the arrival of an awaited letter, the expression of a dispirited mother livening at the sight of her young child, the warm and motherly wrap of Durga’s arm around a frozen Apu… and so on and so forth. Depicted so eloquently, the movie can be compared to a glacial winter where the characters are left in biting frostiness to survive, with the promise of a consistent sunshine - one that emerges when we see Durga and Apu rummage around excitedly for new-fangled discoveries like that of a train whistling in a distance, or when we watch while Apu first instigates, then worshipfully whirls around his fuming elder sister, or when we see them vigorously trail behind the village sweet seller - both, always grinning and drinking eagerly the sweet splendors of life.
The film in entirety is a recognized masterpiece, but there are scenes that epitomize its brilliance to me. The shots in which Ray depicts the announcement of death are remarkably novel and uncommon for his time - his terrific use of austere symbolism and evocative music (by Ravi Shankar) are haunting in effect and provocation, sans tears and other tragic trivialities. The scene of Indir’s silhouette against the wall while she expressively recites her frightening tale to the children is one more in the endless list of its spectaculars!
The performances of all the actors are naturally fantastic - as if they are habitually living in their own space and time, perfectly oblivious to the following gaze of the camera’s eye. Durga’s (Runki Bannerjee) spontaneous smile is purely contagious! Indir’s (Chunibala Devi) extraordinarily aged lines are intriguing and full of grace, one looks at her all through, dubiously wondering if her fragile skeleton structure will make it through her next teetering footstep. Apu (Subir Bannerjee), playful and sprightly as a child changes existing stereotypes of delectable chubby children by being a lovable lean little boy who captures you with his curious eyes and energetic will.
Pather Panchali displays a talismanic ability to transform the unexciting routine gradations of life into magically transcending moments that are full of sweet euphoria, realistic relationships, relentless struggles and herculean emotions- A treasure chest of vintage culture and arrangement for those who lived in its time, and a prized revelation to those of the latter-day, the film is a rare and exemplary cinematic experience. Let go of your action-packed suspicious spirit before this one, and hum along in tune with this gently glorious song of the road.
Editor’s Rating: 
Pather Panchali’s Train sequence
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Nice review.
The single most talked about Indian film in World cinema. Ironically, not a lot of Indians have seen it nor it is easily available. I have been searching for a copy and waiting for someone to screen it for over 4 years! I could just watch the other two films in the trilogy.
The Vcd is available at Landmark apparently, but without subtitles!
I was lucky to watch the film at a screening in college; haven’t still watched the other two in the trilogy though. Heard they’re fantastic as well..
Ya, Aparajito is phenomenal with Apur Sansar being no less great… Soumitra Chatterjee is one of India’s best… He’s got his national award too late…
Well, I have watched all the 3 movies that Ray’s legendary Apu Trilogy comprises of & I can safely state (something that has been said umpteen times the world over) that it is one of the greatest trilogies the world of cinema has witnessed - on par and perhaps even better than Kieslowski’s Colors Trilogy & Park Chan-Wook’s Vengeance Trilogy. In fact there’s another trilogy, thematically though, of Ray - the Calcutta trilogy (Seemabaddha, Pratidwandi & Jana Aranya) - which was also no less brilliant. Personally, among Pather Panchali, Aparajito & Apur Sansar, I found the Apur Sansar (the World of Apu) as the best among equals.
Being a huge fan of Ray, let me share some interesting tidbits about Pather Panchali:
1) The movie was heavily influenced by Vittorio De Sica’s Neorealist masterpiece Bicycle Thief. In fact, while he was working at an advertising company, he had drawn the illustrations for the novel by Bibhutibhushan Bannerjee (Ray was a terrific artist as well. If you read any of his novels or short stories, you’ll find the books littered with his pencil sketches). Anyway, while on a trip to London during a company tour, he watched around a hundred movies in three months, and as soon as he watched the Bicycle Thief, he decided to model his first movie on the themes propunded by it.
2) Ray made the first third of the movie by pawning his wife’s ornaments & some money that he had. The next third was made courtsey some money raised by an American film critic who loved the first part. Finally, the remaining was sponsored and distributed by the West Bengal government’s Transport division because they thought the movie (’Song of the Little Road’) was a documentary on roads of the state.
3) The lady who played Indir, one of the few professional actors in the movie, was an actor when she was young. But when Ray found her, she was living a destitute life at a red light area.
4) Mrinal Sen paid a wonderful homage to the movie through his film Interview. The movie presented characters as if they are actors enacting the story shown in the movie. The lady who played Sarbojaya is introduced in the movie by showing her stills from Pather Panchali in the form of flashbacks.
5) There was a poll once conducted by the famous Sight & Sound film magazine for the best sequences or scenes ever filmed, and Pather Panchali’s mesmerizing Train sequence, where Apu & Durga run through palash field to catch their first glimpse of a train, made the top 10.
6) Pather Panchali wasn’t in fact Ray’s first direct association with filmmaking. Before the movie he had acted as an assistant director when Jean Renoir came down to Calcutta to make a part of his movie River. In fact Ray had gone to interview him as representative of a film society he had founded (the 1st in India) - the Calcutta Film Society, and ended up convincing Renoir to let him serve in the capacity of his assistant and find locations for his movie.
Such awesome trivia, Except for the first, I wasn’t aware of the points mentioned here. Thanks, goes on to show that great works have often greater stories behind them. I am sure if we dug deeper, we’d find so much meaningful stuff behind every legendary movie.
There’s one more thing that’s totally interesting.
Ray didn’t write a script for Pather Panchali, instead.. he filled up a whole sketch book with a scene to scene series of wash drawings in the manner of comics. The sketch book now is with the Cinematheque Francaise in Paris!
@Shubhajit: That is some really fantastic trivia. I’ve watched Apur Sansar and Pather Panchali of the Teen Kanya trilogy. I loved both of them. it would be a sin to choose amongst them. I loved the train sequence but did not know it was one of the top ten sequences in Sight & Sound. And about the part of funding by the West Bengal government, that’s totally expected considering most people don’t know what a Panchali is. I myself got to know much later. My friend who rightfully considers himself a pundit as far as Hindi and Sanskrit is considered couldn’t figure out how Pather Panchali translated to ‘Song of the Little Road.’ Thanks for the tidbits. I’m very grateful.
@Abhinav. Its always a pleasure to share what I know, and imbibe what I don’t. You are right, ‘Panchali’ isn’t a very common word, but as far as in Bengali is concerned, it isn’t a completely unknown word as well; so I guess that might not have been the reason for the funding after all
By tha way, Pather Panchali and Apur Sansar weren’t part of Ray’s Teen Kanya movie. It was part of what is known as Apu Trilogy. Teen Kanya comprised of three short films (based on short stories by Tagore) - Postmaster (a tragic drama), Monihara (a wonderful ghost story) & Samapti (a delightful romantic comedy).
Reading all the wonderful comments and trivias above I could not resist myself sharing some more tidbits on this masterpiece.
Pather Panchali struggled many a times during the course of the shooting for funding and shooting had to be stopped for several months.Those of us who had seen the movie or its posters(created by none other than Ray himself) will never forget the train sequence where Apu with his sister Durga is running through a Kash field.The whole scene was shot over almost 1 year .The first part of the shooting covered few seconds of that shot and after that shooting had to be adjourned until West Bengal government came into the funding which was almost 9 months later .During that time the Kash field was wiped out clean….When Ray saw the field that time he was suggested by many to drop that scene but he decided to wait for taking that one scene which we all know later to become a legend………
Writer of the novel Bibhutibhusan Bannerjee never believed that Pather Panchali can never be portrayed in any other forms than his book which was a Bildungsroman mostly based on his own life.When Satyajit first contacted the late writes wife for the movie rights he had to work very very hard to convince her…….
Though I love the movie I also feel that Satyajit could only reach about 60% of what achieved by the book….But probably he was the only man to reach even upto that!!!!!!!!!!!
Bollywood star Nargis Dutt commented that she saw no use in making films like Pather Panchali as movie of this kind would only promote India’s darker side to whole worlds audience……In reply to that Satyajit sent her a sketch of herself made by him……..
This tune of Nargis was hummed by many main stream film persona through the last few decades but the world audience themselves have shown the true picture with time……
Correction:——————–
Writer of the novel Bibhutibhusan Bannerjee believed that Pather Panchali can never be portrayed in any other forms than his book which was a Bildungsroman mostly based on his own life.When Satyajit first contacted the late writes wife for the movie rights he had to work very very hard to convince her…….
What I mistakenly submitted in my previous comment has a totally different meaning…………Sorry for that …………..Neglect that paragraph and read this one instead…………..