The Ballad from Nischindpur:

Have you ever looked at a painting and become suddenly happy, Have you ever felt the mad rushes of some tiny molecules gush away from various parts of the body that you had learnt to identify in your long forgotten biology classes and flood your heart with a kind of happiness and pleasure that can only be experienced and never dared described? Remember those lines from American Beauty, where Rickey describes the white carry-bag floating in air and ends his monologue by saying “ Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in.” That’s what I echoed on seeing the wonderful Pather Panchali by the master craftsman, Satyajit Ray. I had read BibhutiBhushan Bandopadhya’s book of the same name not too long before I had seen the movie and had been pleasantly amazed and touched by the innocence of the characters and deeply moved by the heart rendering rustic surroundings that was the keystone around which the story revolved. Having said this, Let me also say that all the beauty in that book hadn’t prepared me enough for the beauty that the movie hurled at me and I was left gaping at the screen with a happy goofy smile smacked across my face and with my hands holding my heart in sheer happiness. Seems ludicrous isn’t it, but then Pather Panchali is a movie which you just have to see to be a fan of.

Pather Panchali is a director’s movie, where the visuals of the countryside with the meandering roads and the lush fields, the calm waters of the village pond and the disturbing loud chug of the distant train creates an atmosphere which reassures the viewer of the greatness of the director with each of its frame. The movie, like the other Italian neo-realist movies of that time uses non-actors as the main protagonists and portrays the common placed miseries and the little aspirations and desires of people whom we may have come across but never turned and looked when they passed by. Satyajit Ray with his sensitivities which no doubt would have made Tagore proud, captures just that, villagers toiling hard to make the ends meet without loosing hope, stricken with poverty but remaining honest, hungry yet remaining proud. The visuals are enchanting and the music like the flowing river and blowing wind make you sway with them in a pace that’s leisurely racy.

The story is minimalist about a poor Brahmin family in a far off village lost somewhere in the desolate lands of the poverty stricken countryside of Bengal. The head of the family, a middle-aged man named Harihar Ray played by a theater actor named Kanu Banerjee is astounding as a poor man but always hopeful for good things to happen in life. He dreams of being a writer, writing play and dance dramas (palas, a concept which sadly is now obsolete). Karuna Banerjee, who was the director’s friend and had never acted before, plays Harihar’s wife Sarbojaya. She is the perfect housewife with little dreams for her husband, for her daughter and her little son. Like she says in the kitchen, “we will have food twice a day, Durga will get married, Apu will grow up and have a job, what else is required” and to this Harihar answers, “Hobe, Hobe” (It will happen with God’s grace). This scene, with the innocence of the characters and the plight of the people, totally moved me; the important thing being, these people were not portrayed as heroes but as pawns in the hands of fate battling poverty, fighting an war which may have been already lost but still not loosing hope and their head.
Apu (Subir Banerjee) and Durga (Uma Dasgupta) are their children and they are the ones who steal the show with their innocent acting portraying sometimes desire, sometimes an understanding that maybe is the result of their poverty. Durga as a character is amazing, she steals fruits from the near by orchard, which once had belonged to their family, and gives it to her grand aunt, an wizened old woman, who though is ninety and an widow loves the good things in life, a little more chilly, some more salt. She loves her kid brother Apu and acts as a sister, mother and friend and all rolled into one. Apu the central character of the story is a young boy of eight who is a wide-eyed sensitive kid and a favorite of his mother and sister alike. He waits near the door waiting for the sweet-vendor to pass by, and looks longingly at it when he does. This now brings me to Indrin Thakur, an old lady of around eighty years old, played by Chunibala who marvels with her performance. It is surprising to note that, she was found by Satyajit Ray near a brothel, where she was living as a destitute after having been a theater artist long time back. She with her ease and effortless acting is the best thing in the movie and brings her character to life. Her reciting “Hari, take me to the other world” and narrating the ghost stories to the children remain the high points and the sequences I will always carry with me.

Any review of this movie without mentioning the fabulous cinematography and the amazing art direction is seer blasphemy. The cinematography by the first timer Subrata Mitra is mind blowing, the camera had never been more inconspicuous yet so much in notice. The sequences where the kids follow the sweet-vendor followed by a dirty street mongrel, and their reflection visible on the water, is simply stupefying. The sequence in which Apu and Durga see the train for the first time is brilliant, tall grasses with the color of the sky merging with the tip of the grasses, and then the black smoke in the background with the loud chugs of the approaching trains. The art direction by Bansi Chandragupta is accurate, I have been to villages and have visited households with the similar economic background and haven’t yet found any fallacy in the household goods they portrayed. The obscenely huge trunks of feeble materials, the small brass containers, Chunibala’s torn blanket with funny squarish patterns and Sarbojaya’s sari with the thick black borders decorated with beetle leaf shaped embroidery, all of these lend a feeling of completeness and creates together a picture that is astoundingly profound and stimulating for the soul.

The music by Pandit Ravi Shankar, in simple words is just great. He deserves all accolades and with this only score is deserving of all the fame and venerations he is attributed with. The sequence towards the end when Sarbojaya gives a heart shattering news to Harihar, the dialogues are muted and music takes over rapidly adding to the pathos that the visuals and the story had already generated. The background music of Pather Panchali truly does what music is supposed to do, complement the story.

After my lengthy tributes I think it is redundant to say that I thought Pather Panchali to be one of the best movies ever made in the history of cinema. This movie along with Aparajito and Apur Sansar remains the best that Indian cinema has given the world. Calling Pather Panchali “A Movie” may be an insult to the brilliance of Satyajit Ray; this is a painting on celluloid, a song of the road, the ballad from the every place Nischindpur.