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Shampa Srivastava, who plays the younger Durga in the film (credited as Runki Banerjee), next talks for 16-minutes about working with Ray, who she keeps referring to as, more or less, that “large, beautiful man.” She gives an idea as to what it was like while making the film, but she also talks about working with her mother, Karuna Bannerjee, who plays the mother in the film. The actor actually plays Apu in the third film in the trilogy, Apur Sansar, and has nothing to do with Pather Panchali directly, but he talks about the popularity of the film and its source novel, and the impact the film had on him, chiefly in terms of acting. It’s a wonderful first-hand recollection with plenty about the learning curve he experienced while making the film.Ĭriterion then includes a few interviews, starting with a brief 7-minute one with actor Soumitra Chatterjee. He admits he thought it would be all easy, but once he got into the nitty-gritty of it and had to actually deal with the camera and the actors, things obviously became more challenging and weren’t as clear cut.

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During the 14-minute recording Ray talks about his first day of shooting and his general nervousness that did ease over time, and his thoughts on how to obtain authenticity. Pather Panchali’s supplements start out with A Long Time on the Little Road, which is a recording-made by Gideon Bachmann-of Ray reading from a 1957 essay he wrote on the making of the film. The box set features a nice assortment of features spread out over the three discs, with supplements specific to the related film and then the trilogy as a whole. I was expecting something quite a bit worse, but, all things considered, the film looks remarkable and everyone involved should be commended. The restoration work has been exceptional and it’s easy to forget the rough history this film has been through. As I mentioned fine vertical scratches are the more common issue, but they don’t distract. Though these few scenes present some heavier, more glaring damage (again, looking to come from less than ideal sources), the majority of the film is in extraordinary shape. In cases where the source is obviously less than ideal damage can get a little heavier and the gray scale shifts a little bit. There are also a couple of instances where it looks like frames are missing.

Edges are clean, gray levels and black levels look pretty spot on (for the most part) and the level of detail is shocking at times, remarkably rendering textures.Īs to the print it shouldn’t be a shock that damage remains, and it is obvious, though primarily in vertical scratches and some minor pulsating in a few spots, with some of the transitions between scenes presenting jumps and heavy damage. No compression issues were apparent and the film’s grain is nicely handled, no blocky patterns showing up. The digital transfer itself is actually one of the better ones I’ve seen on a Criterion release lately (and the same can be said for the other titles in the set), delivering a very filmic look throughout. Coming from the at least three different sources (what could be saved of the original negative, a duplicate negative from the Academy Film Archive, and a fine-grain master from the BFI), Pather Panchali’s transfer and restoration is superb.

Criterion, along with the Academy Film Archive, undertook an extensive restoration project for all three films and we see the fruits of that labor here. The new high-definition, 1080p/24hz presentation comes from a new 4K restoration.Īs most know the original negatives for the Apu Trilogy (as well as for a number of other films by Ray) were severely damaged-if not destroyed-in a fire. The first in the trilogy, Pather Panchali, is presented on the first dual-layer disc in its original aspect ratio of about 1.33:1. A masterpiece, inarguably.What feels like a long time coming, Criterion releases Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy on Blu-ray. A hymn to curiosity, courage and conscience, it introduces Apu as an opening eye, innocent of adult anxieties but alert to adventure and, finally, moral discovery. It remains a miracle of lyrical realism: the detailed, documentary-style observation of village life as experienced by young Apu, his sister Durga, their parents and ancient grandma is inflected by a marvellous use of motifs (trains beckoning to another, industrialised urban world, water as a symbol of cyclical regeneration) to turn a simple rites-of-passage story into pure poetry.

PATHER PANCHALI AMAZON MOVIE

It was the first Indian movie to attract attention in the West, and if your experience of subcontinental cinema extends no further than Bollywood’s romantic musicals, it’s not just the film’s enduring status as a landmark of world cinema that makes it essential viewing. It’s 50 years since the late, great Bengali writer-director Satyajit Ray made his debut with this, the first and finest installment of his ground-breaking ‘Apu Trilogy’.

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