“Song of the Road” ( Beng. পথের পাঁচালী , Pather Panchali ) is a film by the Indian director Satyajit Rai , thanks to whom Indian cinema was known all over the world. Filmed in 1955 with financial support from the government of West Bengal based on the novel of the same name by Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhaya . The first part of the Apu trilogy .
| Song of the road | |
|---|---|
| পথের পাঁচালী Pather panchali | |
 | |
| Genre | drama |
| Producer | Satyajit Rai |
| Producer | government of west bengal |
| Author script | Satyajit Rai |
| In the main cast | Kanyu Bannerji Karuna Bannerji Subir Bannerji |
| Operator | Subrat Mithra |
| Composer | Ravi Shankar |
| Film company | Government of West Bengal |
| Duration | 115 minutes |
| A country |  India |
| Tongue | Bengal |
| Year | 1955 |
| IMDb | ID 0048473 |
Content
Story
The film narrates in a manner close to Italian neorealism and poetic realism of Jean Renoir , about the childhood of a boy in an Indian village. The figurative series of the picture, according to the Allmovie resource, can be compared with the works of Griffith and Murnau ; dialogue sometimes seems superfluous [1] . The scene is especially famous in which the mother spends a sleepless night at the bedside of her sick daughter, and a storm in the courtyard knocks on a shaky door and scatters light curtains.
Cast
- Kanyu Bannerji - Harihar Ray
- Karuna Bannerji - Sarbojaya Ray
- Subir Bannerji - Apu
- Uma Das Gupta - Durga
- Chunibala Devi - Indir Takrun
- Reba Devi - Sedja Takrun
Production
The Bengal writer Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhaya’s novel, “Song of the Road,” is a classic buildungsroman (a type of adult story) in the canon of Bengali literature. It first appeared as a compilation in a Calcutta periodical in 1928 and was published as a book a year later. The novel tells about the struggle of a poor family for the survival of their ancestors in their village house and the growing up of Apu, the son of the family. The late part of the novel, in which Apu and his parents leave their village and settle in Benaras, formed the basis of the film “The Unconquered” (The Unvanquished, 1956), the second film in the director’s trilogy. Satyajit Rai, a graphic artist at Signet Press, created illustrations for the new shortened edition of the book in 1944. At that time, Paradise read the novel without limits; Signet owner D.K. Gupta told Ray that the shortened version would make a great movie. Ray liked the idea, and around 1946–1947, when he was thinking of making a film, he turned to Peter Panchali because of certain qualities that “made him a great book: his humanism, his lyricism and his ring of truth.” The author’s widow allowed him to make a film based on the novel; the agreement was, in principle, only, and no financial agreement was concluded. The word path in Bengali literally means the road, and pather means the path. The word panchali refers to the type of folk song that is sung in this state, as well as the performance.
Success
With the assistance of Jawaharlal Nehru, the film was shown at the 1956 Cannes Film Festival , where he was greeted with applause and awarded the prize "The Best Human Document of the Year". Critics wrote about the young director who became the face of Indian cinema:
His ingenuous eye sees life and people. The composition of his shots is so virtuous that it can be compared with the manner of the few outstanding directors in the entire history of world cinema ... But not in camera angles and in editing plans lies the main secret of his success. The power of Paradise lies in the ease with which he penetrates into the very inside of his heroes and shows what is happening in their minds and hearts [2] .
Notes
Links
- Song of the Road ( Internet ) on the Internet Movie Database
- Song of the Road (English) on allmovie