valadas A real masterpiece indeed in every aspect: atmosphere, interpretation, dramatic stoutness of the plot and a remarkable gallery of authentic characters. In West Bengal (India) a poor family lives in a rural village: father, mother, son, daughter and an old almost invalid aunt. Money is scarce and debts pour. The father decides to leave for the city to get a better job. Daily life is shown in a very realistic detailed way. Everything is really dramatic and tragedy ends by falling upon the rest of the family, pushing the man who had come back meanwhile to leave the village and head for the city with his family. This is one of those movies you must decidedly not to miss.

Rajesh C Off late i have stopped writing about films because my perspective has progressed that films are not an essential and valuable service, apart from non outdoor entertainment provided which is required to have healthy mind. Also, films are one sided and not two way as people on screen and behind keep exhibiting their talent and we the viewers have no participation (example in sports-Tennis or Chess is two sided). But recently got inspired to come back into my favorite arena-(parallel) movies(commonly/colloquially known as non song movies, award cinema, art film, documentary, slow movies, elite film festival audience movie) after getting inspired from a TV show accidentally i watched while changing channel, where Indian film director told that his favorite personality is Satyajit Ray(a veteran with Oscar and Bharat Ratna to his credit). While saying there was a special spark in his eyes. Then i came back to this movie called Pather Panchali - Song of the little road(1955) which was released 61 years ago(was in development hell for 3 years indeed), which is Mr.Ray's first movie with no experience in films except for watching, analyzing and discussing them. Unresisted to watch the movie despite the criticism on Rays movie as selling poverty abroad, lack of modernism,melodramatic and slow.Needless to say, movie is sourced to a literature as like any parallel movie should be. The film is into 5 characters of lower middle class family set in rural India. Rays movie has deeper touch with realism, story being natural and so the characters(in simple-the style is into absorbing story and characters strongly, parallel movie trademark). His style is more focused on characters. Its a chilling experience and a break from blood and gore and over romantic, repeat artificial routine movies in recent and past trend. Characters moments of living life as a human being is captured in close shots which is overwhelming. The boys reaction to his sisters beating and making-up with a mustache as a man after watching a theater performance and enjoying the rain with his sister is close to heart. Not to miss the deepness of Apu's love to sister when the movie ends he throws away the beads(which his sister stole and got beaten) to protect her reputation.The end of movie is heart breaking to be not in touch with the family we enjoyed overseeing while they are living. The chilling experience is deep because of the family living in a natural surrounding-lovely nature ambiance. People who have suffered lack of humanity in real life will enjoy this movie of 2 hours and 6 minutes for sure. Fiction seated in realism some or most of the times is purely enjoyable because we already built a stage(as we can closely match the realism in our life) to launch a fiction on top of it.

Sagar Bhatt 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.

kurosawakira In 1956, "Pather panchali" opened to the least possible fanfare at the Cannes Film Festival. It was shown at midnight the same time there was a party in honor of Akira Kurosawa, and only a handful of film critics bothered to attend the screening. We can be thankful for the ones who did, among them Bazin, Moskowitz and Anderson. They demanded the film be shown again, and the rest is history. I paraphrase from the essay "Distant Music" written by Philip Kemp, available in the booklet for "Jalsaghar" ('The Music Room', 1958), released by the Criterion Collection.Ray is absolutely amazing. "Charulata" (1964) was my first love, after which I was able to see this and then "Jalsaghar". Now I've been going through his select filmography, and I'm going to have to visit Charu again in the near future.Just like "Jalsaghar", the three films that are the Apu trilogy are an overwhelmingly sober account of life and death, and everything in between. Each film is structured around death, and normally we would have reconciliation. But here we have perceived reconciliation through death, "perceived" in the sense that each time it's short of complete; something is left unsaid, something is amiss. It's all quite shocking, really. Emotionally very draining, and this is Ray's absolute gift. He is able to touch upon a subject like this and examine it whilst retaining a sense of vitality, allowing him not to succumb to heavy-handed melancholy (something I feel Bergman occasionally swerved to) but instead stay rooted in life – bittersweet, full of hope, sometimes unanswered.There are some iconic and haunting images in this film that are yet to be matched in their intensity. A beautiful death poem, and a life poem, as well.