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The Apu Trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito, The World of Apu) [VHS]

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Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy - "Pather Panchali" (1955), "Aparajito" (1957), and "The World of Apu" (1959)- are so emotionally resonant and beautifully made that the much-abused term "masterpiece" fails to connote their achievement. They are, to put it simply, three of the greatest films ever made. The three films portray the life of a young man who emerges from rural poverty in Bengal to go to university in Calcutta and finally into marriage and family life. Although this sounds rather tedious, Ray invests this seemingly ordinary life with a poetic power and lucidity which enables the viewer to witness Apu's growth not as some labored progression of plotted scenes but as a living process. Comedy and tragedy blend so fluidly that they appear as part of life's natural rhythms and yet, by some miracle, Ray avoids the dullness of most other directors' attempts to convey "real life" on the screen. Ray's art depicts a real! ity that transcends reality. I believe he accomplishes this by avoiding the pitfall of many independent directors who believe it's simply enough to present life "as it is", devoid of special effects or big stars, to give their films integrity. Ray knows better - his depictions of rural life, city life, university life are jumping-off points from which he explores these different milieux and how they affect his characters. He never falls back into the attitude that simply depicting hardship and struggle is enough; he probes deeper into how these experiences shape an individual's character at the several stages of his life. Moreover, unlike other filmmakers, Ray isn't trying to strip Apu's character down to his basic psychological states (like Bergman would) nor he is setting him up as a figure from which we can draw easily digested moralisitic lessons. He respects his characters and their combinations of strengths and weaknesses - for their humanity, that is -- ! too much to treat them clinically or didactically. It's Ra! y's integrity towards his characters that makes these three films so transcendent. The Apu Trilogy is humanistic in the highest sense of the word for Ray makes us see the beauty of our human complexities and contradictions. And there are so many beautiful moments in each of these films that, while drawing on influences ranging from pre-war French cinema to Italian neo-realism, Ray practically invents a form of poetic cinema all by himself.

For many years these films were either impossible to get on VHS or sold in very poor quality dubs. I must applaud Sony Picture's decision to release these films re-mastered, using the finest quality prints available and re-doing the sub-titling to make them easier to read. Fifty dollars may appear too great a risk on three films you've probably never heard of but getting all three together and seeing them consecutively is the only way to appeciate their scope. END

Pather Panchali(1952): From the opening titles in Bengali to the first scenes of young Durga stealing guavas from an orchard and skipping away this film transports one completely into the world of an Indian family living in the country. When the young Apu is born and begins to grow he and his big sister Durga share all kinds of childish adventures. Durga and Apu are very entertaining and Ray captures childhood better than any other director. The adults are also well drawn. Stoic mother and dreaming want-to-be writer father living on the brink of poverty gives the film an attractive balance between adult and childs concerns. Made in the realist style in beautiful black and white , a mesemerising two hour film.
Aparjito(1956): This takes up right where the last one left off. The family moves to the city and there some of the most beautiful scenes are of the citizens and holy men going about their daily ablutions on the stone steps leading down to the Ganges. Apu growns up quickly(and the young actor is missed, replaced by an awkward adolescent with sprouting moustache)and this middle film follows Apu through his years at school in Calcutta. One of the best scenes is when the still young Apu is asked to read out loud in class and he does so in the most musical and poetic voice to the amazement of all his teachers and so eventually wins a scholarship. The first film all took place in the rural country. This one contrasts the industrial city and its sophisticated inhabitants and the rural countryside and its simpler inhabitants and focuses on the growing division within Apu himself.
The World of Apu(1959): Apu is a young man(and the original actor who played the little boy returns to play him as a young man). Rays filmic style has also become more sophisticated. The highlight of this last of the three films is the bride Ananda. She is utterly beautiful and quite easily puts Apu's post-student dissarray into order. Their scenes together are some of the most memorable of the trilogy, they relate in such a naive/sophisticated way. The formality of the arranged marriage and opulent ceremony with traditonal costumes contrasts markedly with the stark hovel where they begin their lives together and underlines the state of India herself, caught between observing its traditons and finding a modern identity. This couple finds a perfect balance.

I have purposely avoided giving some key details which are better left unknown so that the element of surpsise will not be ruined while you experience the films for the first time. I watched all three films in a row and was left in a spell by them. These films show the very best use to which the cinema can be put. I'm very glad they did not dub the voices and used subtitles because the sound of Bengali being spoken is as alluring as the Ravi Shankar music.

This trilogy by Satyajit Ray may be cinema's greatest bildungsroman, or the development or upbringing story. It is about the upbrininging of a boy, the eponymous Apu, beginning at early childhood to the stage of his fatherhood. Set against the backdrop of utter poverty in West Bengal, it is almost the metaphoric journey of the human spirit struggling through life's many stages of suffering, and finally triumphing in assuming its responibilities. The whole story is a rich tapestry of human suffering, from bitter poverty to the loss of loved ones, including the beloved one. And yet the trilogy isn't a tragedy, since the human spirit survives through these hardships, and does not lose its humanity or its faith in itself. Right at the end Apu regains his optimism in humanity, in taking the responsibilty of his child, even though the birth of this child resulted in the death of Apu's wife, that put him in a profound despair, in which he wandered in the wilderness for a number of years. It was a wilderness that was both physical, expressed in the geography of Central India, as well as a spiritual one, of which the land barrenness and ruggedness was a metaphor. The trilogy has many facets: from one angle, it is a realistic piece of documentary about poverty (indeed in the Venice film festival it received a special jury price for "best human document". At another level it examines the degrading effects of poverty upon human beings, which forces people to resort to wrongdoing, e.g. theft (as in Apu's sister stealing a necklace), or severs natural human bonds, (as when the grandmother is abandoned by Apu's mother), loneliness and depression (Apu's mother in the second part), and of course death. You always feel that every death in that film was caused by poverty in some way. Indeed this trilogy is a pilgrimage of the human soul through suffering, rather like King Lear is. But whereas Lear is about the human soul in its final stages of life, Apu encapsulates all of human life, which is a pilgrimage, not just the last stages of life, as in Lear. Throughout the film, Apu's determination to learn, educationally and spiritually, is the greatest source of the film provides. Apu educates himself and throws away the shackles of ignorance and superstition, and progresses. One can interpret that one of the film's messages may be that ignorance and supersttion are the causes of human suffering, especially in the form of poverty. The idea of progress gives the film its mythic quality. It is a more profound progress than a material one. It is spiritual and intellectual, which we all know ennobles the human condition and does not corrupt it like weaslth does. So one senses from this particular type of progress in Apu a possible cure to all the societal diseases of society, from poverty, crime and human cruelty. We feel that if every one in society undergoes such a progress then society as a whole might change for the better. So by the end of the film the human spirit does feel a sense of triumph. Finally, despite the films multifarious dimensions, we have to acknowledge that the film is actually about an ordianry human beings, who interms of fame or success does not achieve anything. So its not a story of the ubermensch of myths or popular culture, but rather a story about an ordinary person, just like us. Indeed a whole generation of calcuttans identified themselves with Apu. And this another supreme quality of the film, it triumphs the ordinary experiences of Everyman, not crassly, but sees it in its multifarious qualities. Indeed it dignifies the life of Man, even in the ignominy of dire poverty. Satyajit Ray's humanism transpires more brilliantly in this trilogy than any of his other works. We can almost say that Apu himself may be a perfect embodiment of that humanism that Ray harboured all his life, and which is present in all his films. This trilogy is the greatest humanistic document that I have ever come across, the profundity of which may even parallel the works of such other great artists as Shakespeare or Tagore.

Any attempt to summarize these films is inevitably doomed to failure: how can one convey within a few words such poetry, such depth of feeling, such nobility of vision? To simplify, the major themes of these films are loss and progress. By progress, Ray does not mean the acquisition of wealth and power: this is nothing so crude as a rags-to-riches story. Ray's concept of progress is something far more subtle and profound - a moral progress that involves a willingness to engage with the complexities of life, painful though it often is. The impression one is left with at the end is that of a kind of glory - quite transcending the soul-destroying poverty against which these films are set. I have seen nothing quite as moving as this.

The emotional impact of these works seems to grow with each repeated viewing. These are films to live with, and, taken together, seem to me among this century's greatest artistic masterpieces, in any medium.

these movies are unquestionably the most important movies I have ever seen. I have difficulty believing I will ever see another movie that even rivals these movies. Absolutley stunningly beautiful, these movies destroyed me, and brought me deeper into touch with my own humanity. The deceptively simple subject matter is the strength of these films, one would imagine a film about a boy growing up, losing family members, and eventually marrying and raising a child would be pretty boring, that's life one might say... but Ray, and his cinematographer, bring such stunning beauty, and poigniancy to the story, there are no words in the English language to describe the loss that would be yours if you did not see these films at least once in your life.... And if you did not see the remastered versions, because the older versions are impossible to watch, because the picture quality is so bad, and the white subtitles blend in with the picture. In these remastered versions, the picture quality is GREATLY restored, revealing the true beauty of the films imagery, and the subtitles have been done in yellow, clarifying all mysteries about the dialouge.

The first movie was my favorite of the three, because I loved the boy apu. I also loved his grandmother who was briliant, and there were some amazing scenes with her, including a particular sillhoutte scene that I recall (I havent seen the film in over a year). The father is brilliant as well, into the second movie, as is the sister. Throughout the trilogy, the music that goes into the film is amazing. These are technical masterpieces, evident even to the amatuer film watcher like myself. And you get a great glimpse of mid-centruy Bengal and that culture from these films.

I first saw these three movies when I was in my twenties (I am now almost 65) in an art film theater in Portland, OR. All three movies at once. My friends and I took picnic lunches and spent the day. At the time, I thought that this was too long to spend in a movie theater with an aching [...]. I loved the movies, but it was too much to absorb all at once.

As it turns out, I keep returning to this trilogy faithfully every few years. I bought them separately and I sit in my Lazy Boy (not so hard on the rear) and watch all three over and over again. I am glad to see them released as a collection. They were not so easy to find one by one and before the advent of Amazon.com.

These films always have more to teach me about being a human being. The humor and the anguish and the despair are common to all of us. So is survival. I recommend the purchase of this trilogy because they should be viewed many times. There are so many nuances that you miss the first few times around. I can only imagine what they are like in the original language.

These are works of art.

All 3 movies in the trilogy are oustanding on their own. They all have the heart of humanity at the center and work around human relationships, whether it be sister-brother, mother-son or husband-wife. They are an absolute treat to any movie lover.

In this series of three cinematic masterpieces, Ray provides the viewer with a touching, unrelentingly bittersweet view of life in the Bengal of the mid-twentieth century. The tone of the films is one of tenderness and humility, with the whole of the directing, cinematography and screenplay working in concert to provide a trilogy which is utterly believable and evokacative of the basic trials and sufferings which we all share. All in all they are simply breathtaking.

Beautiful and poetic, addresses human condition and speaks language of humanity sans all boundaries we have created for ourselves. Have to see it atelast once in life time.

Some of the memorable things are

how apu's mom is denied love the same way she denies the old woman

how apu dozes off when his mom was asking him if he would take care of him in future

the train scene

the rain, absolutely poetic

the old woman, cannot forget her face

how apu throws off the necklace into the pond

relationship between apu and sharila tagore

despite repeated blows of loosing loved ones, apu moves on

Cannot forget someof the scenes in the movie esp pather panchali (song of road), some of them kinda haunt me

esp Pather panchali ( song of the road ) was beautiful