Sixty-nine years after its release, Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali remains India’s most acclaimed film, the incontestable masterpiece two ways about it.
And rightly so. I saw the film again last evening, hoping to come up with something negative to stain the flawless pastiche of poverty.
Sorry, Pather Panchali is irreproachably brilliant. In a little more than two hours, it transports us into that austere yet lyrical little hamlet in West Bengal where every meal is a blessing, and where the population is so divorced from urbaneness that even a radio seems a far cry. The joy that Ray’s characters seek in the mundane, is the joy that Ray embraces and celebrates in this timeless tale of love, grief and hunger.
The insulated world of Pather Panchali is its biggest takeaway. There is an innocence at the heart of the narration which only the most uncorrupted can embrace. Inexperienced instinctive actors who know where to hold a moment and where to let go, inhabit their characters unconditionally. No wonder none of them could ever get recognition for any actors or film.
The sibling bonding between Durga and Apu is the heartbeat of this timeless tale. Watching them run all over the barren village experiencing sights and sounds that they have never encountered(the moment when they see a train passing by, remains unparalleled in its burst of ecstasy) is for the audience, an experience as edifying now as it was when the film broke into world cinema giving India a claim to a fane that we could never hope to achieve ever again.
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I don’t think India will ever make a film as sublime, lyrical and life-defining as Pather Panchali. Its stripped-down austerity, its depiction of a world that transports us to a place where the camera never comes in the way (and slow claps for cinematographer Subrata Mitra for never reminding us of his brilliance), and above all the sibling bonding where close-ups do not define their affection: every glance is a snatched slice of eternity, every invisible footprint on the sands of time that Durga and Apu run across is a reminder of how cinema was always meant to be a reflection of life, not a pantomime of it.
Apart from Durga and Apu, the other relationship that qualifies Pather Panchali is the one between Durga and her wizened peesee(aunt). Durga dotes on the toothless wily old woman, steals fruits to supplement her meals, and suffers her mother’s scolding for sheltering the old lady.
When Peesi dies suddenly, Durga gets the first intimation of mortality in her idyllic though impoverished world.
Durga(played with such indescribable unaffected charm by Uma Dasgupta) is the only character who evolves in the course of the narration. When she leaves us, she leaves us with no hope, except Apu’s future. But that is another story.
Before we reluctantly leave, there is one more thing: what would Pather Panchali be without Pandit Ravi Shankar’s elaborate music? Would it not be an even better version of itself if there was no aural beautification in the background? Pather Panchali is such a heartbreakingly beautiful work of art, any technical embellishment seems redundant.
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