The World of Apu (no 37)

 

by Allan Fish

(India 1959 105m) DVD1/2

Aka. Apur Sansur

End of the road

p  Satyajit Ray  d/w  Satyajit Ray  novel  “Aparajita” by Bibhutibhusan Bandopodhaya  ph  Subrata Mitra  ed  Dulal Dutta  m  Ravi Shankar  art  Bansi Chandragupta

Soumitra Chatterjee (Apu), Sharmila Tagore (Aparna), Alok Chakravarti (Kajal), Swapan Mukherjee (Pulu), Dhiresh Majumdar (Sasinaryan, Aparna’s father), Sefalika Devi (Aparna’s mother), Dhires Ghosh (landlord),

Not too long before her death, the great British critic Dilys Powell compiled her list of the greatest ten directors of all time.  Amongst them she included Satyajit Ray, for his Apu trilogy alone.  When one watches the heartrending climax to this monumental triptych, one can see exactly why.  The greatest trilogy in world cinema history climaxes with what is, arguably, its summit.  While it may have been influenced by the not too dissimilar Maxim Gorki trilogy of Mark Donskoi, this is very much its own animal.  

            We find our hero Apu now spending his days dreaming of becoming a novelist but failing to put his thoughts into words.  One day he attends a wedding only to find out that the arranged marriage is a trick as the bridegroom is out of his mind.  Apu agrees to marry the otherwise disgraced bride Aparna and, gradually, they begin to fall for each other.  But while he’s away, his brother-in-law comes to tell him that, though he now has a son, his beloved Aparna has died in childbirth.  Unable to cope with his grief, Apu tears up his manuscripts. 

            Without going into detail, it does end happily, or rather upliftingly, with Apu finding consolation in the form of his small son (just as the first film began with Apu’s birth bringing delight to his parents).  The cycle of life has been completed and continues afresh.  A cycle that has been represented by many symbolic plot devices through the trilogy (trains, for example), but here seemingly symbolised by the eternal Ganges, going along its imperious way to the poignant conclusion.  Apu has come a long way since he began his humble schooling and left his mother in the second film.  And, though he seems doomed never to fulfil his own ambitions, perhaps he can help his son achieve his. 

            Children, of course, are at the heart of this trilogy and there is somehow a significance in how Ray introduces his moppets.  They often seem to appear in frame coming from behind something, be it a wall, a statue or a tree.  Like the cherubs in Fantasia coming out for the revelry, a young girl overcoming her shyness to emerge naked from behind a tree to go skinny dipping, or a kitten coming from behind the sofa when he realises a camcorder isn’t going to hurt it and it can carry on playing.  It’s that innocent moment when timidity gives way to courage that fascinates Ray.  The same point when a child leaves home or comes to terms with the death of a parent.  Moments we all must face but which have rarely if ever been so tenderly depicted as by Ray here. 

            Though Ray is very much the conductor of this odyssey there are several important players along for the ride.  Subrata Mitra’s camera continues to find poetry in the most humble of locations and interiors, Shankar’s sitar music reaches arguably its emotional zenith of the trilogy and the actors are all superb.  Soumitra Chatterjee perfectly captures that youthful longing to achieve one’s ambitions and the mournful loss of a loved one that can so easily lead to desolation.  He would go on to become a favourite actor of Ray’s and arguably the most famous Indian actor in the western world (see Charulata and Days and Nights in the Forest), but he never committed a scene to celluloid so affecting as the final one here.  Amongst the supports, special mention to Swapan Mukherjee’s Pulu, whose friendship is one of the strongest factors in the entire trilogy.  More than anything, however, it was a testimony to its then 37 year old director, and what a testament it was.  Critics have never stopped singing its praises ever since, but perhaps the best praise was given by Akira Kurosawa, who observed succinctly that “not to have seen the cinema of Ray means existing in the world without seeing the sun or the moon.”