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Sixty-nine years after its release, Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali remains India’s most acclaimed film, the incontestable masterpiece. No two ways about it.

And rightly so. I saw the film again last evening, hoping to find something negative to stain the flawless pastiche of poverty.

Sorry, Pather Panchali is irreproachably brilliant. In a little more than two hours it transports us into that austere yet lyrical little hamlet in West Bengal where every meal is a blessing, and where the population is so divorced from urbaneness even a radio seems a far cry. The joy that Ray’s characters seek in the mundane is the joy that Ray embraces and celebrates in this timeless tale of love, grief, and hunger.

The insulated world of Pather Panchali is its biggest takeaway. There is an innocence at the heart of the narration, which only the most uncorrupted can embrace. Inexperienced instinctive...

Uma Das Gupta, whose unforgettable portrayal of Durga in Pather Panchali (1955) cemented her place in the annals of Indian cinema, passed away on November 18, 2024. Her performance as the spirited yet vulnerable elder sister of Apu remains one of the most iconic in the history of Bengali films. Despite the immense recognition she gained for her role in Satyajit Ray’s masterpiece, Uma chose not to pursue acting, a decision that has intrigued many over the years. As we reflect on her extraordinary life, it becomes evident that her legacy extends far beyond her brief stint in the limelight, touching lives through her work in education, social causes, and her steadfast commitment to personal fulfillment.

The Early Success of Pather Panchali

Directed by the legendary Satyajit Ray, Pather Panchali was a groundbreaking film that introduced Indian cinema to the global stage. Uma Das Gupta, a young girl at the time, portrayed...

“Songs Of Humanity”

By Raymond Benson

I’ll bet many of you cinephiles out there have heard of Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray’s acclaimed trilogy of films from the 1950s (Pather Panchali, aka Song of the Little Road, 1955; Aparajito, aka The Unvanquished, 1956; and Apur Sansar, aka The World of Apu, 1959), but have never actually seen them. Here is your chance to rectify that egregious error. Quite simply put, anyone interested in film history needs to have this trio of motion pictures under the belt.

Satyajit Ray, who received an Honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement in 1992, began his career as an illustrator of books. One of these was Pather Panchali, a classic of Bengali literature (1928) written by Bibhutibushan Bandyopadhyay, and its sequel, Aparajito (1932). They comprise the story of the growth of a boy from infancy to adulthood over the course of twenty-five years or so (from the 1910s to the 1930s...

Pather Panchali/Aparajito/Apur Sansar

Written and directed by Satyajit Ray

India, 1955/1956/1959

The Criterion Collection set of Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy has been one of the more eagerly anticipated releases in recent years. These masterworks of world cinema, widely acclaimed for decades, have been long overdue a much-deserved superior treatment on home video. Now though, benefitting from a 4K digital restoration by the Academy Film Archive and L’Immagine Ritrovata, and with a wealth of bonus features, these exceptional films are available in the superb presentation so many have been waiting for.

But to start at the source, such a treatment would not have been warranted in the first place were the films themselves not so remarkable, and that they most certainly are. As no less an authority than Akira Kurosawa puts it, “To have not seen the films of Ray is to have lived in the world without...

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Pedro Almodóvar explains why he changed the title of his next film from Silencio to Julieta (via THR), and see a new look above:

When we began with preproduction I found out that Martin Scorsese was going to shoot a film with the same title, but I didn’t mind because I thought that I would use the Spanish title, which sounds much different, in the markets. Scorcese and I have finished shooting our respective films and we know that we will coincide in theaters around the world next year around the same time. Additionally, the novel the film is based on by Shusaku Endo will be rereleased.