Film Review
In the second part of his acclaimed
Apu
Trilogy, Satyajit Ray continues his emotionally charged account
of one man's transition from childhood to adulthood, fashioned as a long and
eventful journey that is coloured with joy and tragedy. Both Ray
and his cinematographer Subrata Mitra had made great strides since
their first collaboration on
Pather Panchali and together
they craft one of cinema's most visually alluring pieces of neo-realist
drama, a film that is as warm and engaging as it is heart wrenching.
The power of the narrative to enchant and move is greatly enhanced by
the sheer poetry of the images that Ray and Mitra construct for
us. These convey not only the appalling hardship and sense of
injustice experienced by India's poor in the 1920s, but also an
appreciation of the beauty of life. In the hands of a lesser
filmmaker, this could have ended up as over-sentimentalised melodrama
of the worst kind. Instead, Satyajit Ray's skill and sensitivity
conspire to make it a humanist masterpiece.
Aparajito is a major work of cinema
art that helped to secure Ray's reputation as India's leading filmmaker
and one of the great film auteurs of the Twentieth Century. It
won several awards, including the Golden Lion at the Venice Film
Festival in 1957.
There is a startling dichotomy in this film, a glass-half-empty,
glass-half-full view of life, as seen from the perspective of the
two principal protagonists, from which much of its truth and pathos
derive. Whereas Sarbojaya feels the whole burden of tragedy and
lives a miserable existence, her son Apu appears to be entirely
untouched by the hardship and grief that have befallen his
family. As the mother wallows in self-pity, completely crushed
after the loss of her daughter and husband, the son rushes towards
adulthood with a burning optimism and unbridled sense of
anticipation. It is as if the two characters inhabit
parallel universes, one of cruel self-imposed imprisonment, the other
of unbridled freedom. These two worlds only come together,
briefly, in the film's devastating (yet remarkably understated) climax,
when Apu finally comes of age.
Aparajito
is a story that is universal, the story of a mother finding it hard to
let go of her child, and of an egoistical child who realises, too late, what his
mother meant to him. With immense compassion and understanding, Satyajit Ray
evokes one of the inescapable tragedies of human experience.
© James Travers 2010
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Next Satyajit Ray film:
Apur Sansar (1959)
Film Synopsis
After the death of their daughter, Harihar and Sarbojaya leave their
ancestral village in Bengal and move to the city of Banaras, to start a
new life with their ten-year-old son Apu. Whilst Sarbojaya
stays at home in the family's squalid apartment, Harihar earns a meagre
income by performing religious duties. With his parents unable to
pay for his schooling, Apu spends his days playing in the streets with
his new friends. One day, Harihar collapses with a fever
and dies soon afterwards. This second tragedy in so short a time
is more than Sarbojaya can bear. She and Apu move to a small
village where she finds work as a maid. By scrimping, Sarbojaya
manages to save enough money to allow her son to attend the local
school. Apu proves to be an exceptional scholar. Now
a young man, he is offered a scholarship to the university in
Calcutta. Sarbojaya is unable to imagine a life without her son
but cannot hold him back. Apu is soon so preoccupied in his
studies that he almost forgets his mother. He is too busy to
visit her and seldom writes to her. Then one day he receives a
letter informing him that his mother is gravely ill...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.