Pather Panchali (no 19)

 

by Allan Fish

(India 1955 125m) DVD1/2

Aka. The Song of the Little Road

The road to greatness 

p/d/w  Satyajit Ray  novel  “Aparajita” by Bhibutibushan Bandopadhaya  ph  Subrata Mitra  ed  Satyajit Ray, Dulal Dutta  m  Ravi Shankar  art  Banshi Chandragupta

Kanu Banerjee (Harihar, the father), Karuna Banerjee (Sarbojaya, the mother), Uma Das Gupta (Durga as girl), Subir Banerjee (Apu), Chunibala Devi (Indirtharkun, the old aunt), Runki Bannerjee (Durga as child),

When Satyajit Ray’s debut was first shown in Cannes in 1956 François Truffaut walked out, saying it was insipid and Europeanised.  It may have been influenced by European cinema, particularly the neo-Realist school that dominated Italy in the years leading up to its release, but it’s very much its own personal vision.  One look at the DVD cover for the UK release and you see how Ray is viewed by the majority of his fellow directors, with Dickie Attenborough, Martin Scorsese and Fred Zinnemann waxing lyrical.  It is right that he is so feted and, if the sequels Aparajito and The World of Apu are probably technically superior, they didn’t have the same impact as his debut.  It’s the film that single-handedly removed Indian cinema from its fantastic but dramatically shallow Bollywood foundations and into what would one day be called the art house.  With the possible exception of Ritwik Ghatak, Ray led his nation there virtually single-handedly. 

            Panchali begins in the twenties at a time when India’s economic climate was changing rapidly.  Whole communities are dying out and it’s a question of survival first and living later.  Father of the family, Harihar is a dreamer in contrast with his practical, slightly stern wife, Sarbojaya.  Living with them is their old aunt and their young daughter, Durga, and they are soon to be joined by their second child, Apu.  Six years later we see Apu grown up and the old aunt nearing the end of her days, at which time, with no money to fix their abode, Harihar leaves for the city to try and find more money than his job at the treasury is providing.  Sadly, however, he returns to find his daughter on her deathbed after contracting an illness out in a rainstorm.

            Ray’s film took nearly four years to complete (at weekends and on holidays) and impoverished him in the process.  However, following the advice of Jean Renoir (whose The River he worked on as an assistant at the turn of the fifties) and a brief stay at a film school in London, he undertook the daunting task of bringing Bhibutibushan’s epic family saga to the screen.  With the help of his equally superb collaborators, D.P. Subrata Mitra and the sitar of the immortal Ravi Shankar, he weaves a tapestry of the cycle of life worthy of the greatest of the storytellers of old.  A hymn to childhood, to the respect of old age, and to the Indian culture itself, Panchali is a film to make one grateful for our existence and rue the day we ever make measly complaints about our petty troubles ever again.  “In two years we’ll be living in comfort, free of debt” says Harihar at one point, but you know it’s merely a pipe dream.  It’s a dream he holds onto until he returns from the city, presents in hand, and his wife breaks down when he hands her a new sari for the daughter he doesn’t realise is dead.

            Even so, despite the strength of Karuna Banerjee’s mother, who is very much the rock upon which the family stands, the most memorable character is undoubtedly Chunibala Devi’s ancient Auntie Indir.  Looking ancient enough to recall Methusalah and require carbon dating, she’s a joyous old soul, realising her time is nearly up and looking back wistfully but also forward in hope of a new incarnation to come.  Balanced with the inevitable death of the old woman is the tragic death of poor Durga, whose absence would so affect her little brother.  Not too long before her death she finds herself dwarfed by electricity pylons, not only symbolising progress but a shadowy Death figure ready to descend at any moment.  Forget Truffaut’s dismissive remarks, this is real cinema, a truly devastating emotional account of a country in search of an identity, an identity the young Apu will have to come to terms with in the sequels.  Magnificent.