Pather Panchali (1955)

Director:

Satyajit Ray

Writers:

Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay (novel)
Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay (screenplay)

Release Date:

22 September 1958 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Sometime in the early years of the century, a boy, Apu, is born to a poor Brahmin family in a village in Bengal...

Plot Keywords:

Struggle | Aunt | Stealing | Rural Setting | Hunger

Awards:

Nominated for BAFTA Film Award. Another 7 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Kanu Bannerjee	...	Harihar Ray
Karuna Bannerjee	...	Sarbojaya Ray
Subir Bannerjee	...	Apu
Uma Das Gupta	...	Durga
Chunibala Devi	...	Indir Thakrun
Runki Banerjee	...	Little Durga
Reba Devi	...	Seja Thakrun
Aparna Devi	...	Nilmoni's wife
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Haren Banerjee	...	Chinibas, Sweet-seller
Tulsi Chakraborty	...	Prasanna, school teacher
Nibhanani Devi	...	Dasi Thakurun
Rama Gangopadhaya	...	Ranu Mookerjee
Roma Ganguli	...	Roma
Binoy Mukherjee	...	Baidyanath Majumdar
Harimohan Nag	...	Doctor
Kshirod Roy	...	Priest

Also Known As:

Song of the Little Road (International: English title)
Song of the Road
The Lament of the Path
The Saga of the Road

Runtime:

India:122 min (within Bengal) | Argentina:119 min

Country:

India

Language:

Bengali

Color:

Black and White

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Netherlands:AL | Netherlands:AL (re-release) (2008) | UK:U | Argentina:Atp | Canada:G (Nova Scotia/Québec) | Canada:PG (Manitoba/Ontario)

Company:

Government of West Bengal

Trivia:

Made on a shoestring budget, even to the extent that Satyajit Ray sold some of his beloved LPs as well as his life insurance policy while his wife Bijoya was convinced to pawn her jewels.

Quotes:

Durga: Listen...
Apu: What is it?
Durga: When I'm better, we'll go and look at the trains again. We'll get a good look this time.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Film Geek (2005)

Soundtrack:

It's A Long Way to Tipperary

A Magnificent Movie!

I don't know how even 6.4% of the female voters could have given this movie a 2!!!!! This was Ray's first movie, but his economy of dialog, his synchronization and sympathy with India's rural life is incredible. So little said, yet so much! Apu and Durga following the sweetmeat seller, the scene where they run through a "kash" field....superb, the work of a real artist, a master. The film develops its characters and the atmosphere slowly and resolutely. The narrative builds up to a powerful climax. Ray had an ancient camera while shooting this movie, did it matter? No. His expression and technique was more than sound, although this was a maiden venture.

Some critics found(and still find, I might add) the film to be too slow. Satyajit Ray wrote about the slow pace - "The cinematic material dictated a style to me, a very slow rhythm determined by nature, the landscape, the country. The script had to retain some of the rambling quality of the novel because that in itself contained a clue to the authenticity: life in a poor Bengali village does ramble."

There you are, if you have not watched this movie, you'll probably missed the greatest movie made on Indian rural life. That's why Akira Kurosawa said of him:"To have not seen the films of Ray is to have lived in the world without ever having seen the moon and the sun"