Showing posts from October, 2025
Apur Sansar (1959) – Love, Loss and Renewal | Apu Trilogy Review Apur Sansar (1959) — The World of Apu Ray, Relationships, and the Making of Apu Satyajit Ray’s cinema is deeply invested in relationships — not as dramatic confrontations, but as quiet forces that shape lives over time. Parents and children, husbands and wives, lovers brought together by chance or torn apart by circumstance — Ray observes these bonds with patience, never forcing emotion, never judging choices. Across the Apu Trilogy, Ray traces how relationships mould Apu’s inner life. In Pather Panchali , relationships offer shelter and discovery. In Aparajito , they become sites of guilt and emotional distance. By the time we arrive at Apur Sansar , relationships no longer protect Apu — they transform him. Love arrives suddenly, vanishes cruelly, and leaves behind ...
Aparajito (1956) – The Emotional Cost of Growing Up | Apu Trilogy Review Aparajito (1956) — The Unvanquished Aparajito , the second chapter of Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy , is not merely a continuation of Pather Panchali . It is a deeper, more unsettling film — one that examines the emotional cost of growth and the quiet violence of separation. A Story of Growth, Loss, and the Price of Freedom After the death of Harihar, young Apu (Pinaki Sengupta as the boy and Smaran Ghosal as the teenager) and his mother Sarbajaya ( Karuna Banerjee ) struggle to rebuild their lives. As Apu’s intellect opens doors to education and opportunity, Sarbajaya’s world contracts. Ray charts this divergence with devastating restraint — ambition expands one life while hollowing out another. The Mother–Son Relationship at the Film’s Core Sarbajaya is one of Ray’s most c...
Pather Panchali (1955) Review | Satyajit Ray’s Poetic Debut Pather Panchali (1955): Satyajit Ray’s Poetic Debut Why on earth had I not watched any Satyajit Ray film till now? Puzzles me. But I'm setting out to watch every film made by the great man. Pather Panchali is my kind of cinema. Simple, yet complex. Subtle, yet bold. Rambling, yet assertive. The story is quite loose and banal, but it is the telling of the story that makes an impact. What drew me to the film is the play of characters, and the attention to detail. Your heart goes out to each of the pivotal characters — Sarbajaya , the forced matriarch; Durga , the dreamy daughter; Apu , the boy turning into a man; and Indir , the penniless beggar. Each of them tells their own story, not through words, but through their eyes and body language. Usually, in a film, you can make out the star of the show, but you can'...