Pather Panchali (1955)

All the mischief, discoveries, joys and tragedies of life are given endlessly lyrical expression in Satyajit Ray’s debut, the first entry in ‘The Apu Trilogy’.

Bengali film director Satyajit Ray was inspired by the example of Italian neo-realist films such as Bicycle Thieves (1948) to make his own low-budget, open-air drama painting a naturalistic portrait of ordinary lives. Encouraged by Jean Renoir, whom he assisted during the filming of The River (1951), Ray set to work on an adaptation of a 1929 novel by Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay about a young boy growing up in an impoverished rural community.

Distinct from the more commercial Hindi films of the time, Pather Panchali announced the arrival of a humanistic, Calcutta-centred Indian art cinema, ultimately paving the way for the emergence of the Parallel Cinema movement of the 1960s. Among the film’s intensely memorable moments is a scene in which Apu (Subir Banerjee) and his sister run through a paddy field to catch a glimpse of a passing train.

“Here is a cinema of awakenings.” Sukhdev Sandhu

“A tour de force of humanist cinema, looking at a rural family which faces tragedies as well as stolen moments of happiness and togetherness. The influence of Jean Renoir, coupled with a fierce originality in its black-and-white visuals, still mark it out as the best Indian film ever made – and all achieved at a negligible budget.” Khalid Mohamed

“Ray’s classic was hailed internationally as a realist masterpiece but dismissed in India by some eminent citizens (who should have known better) as a film that did nothing but highlight Indian poverty for Western eyes. Looking at it today, you marvel at what Ray pulled off. He had a great sense of design and space, but to have created a film whose every frame captures time and place with such elegance and depth still takes you aback. To me, it is Indian cinema’s first truly modern film, at home in the world.” Shubhra Gupta

1955 India
Directed by
Satyajit Ray
Written by
Satyajit Ray
Featuring
Kanu Banerjee, Karuna Banerjee, Subir Banerjee
Running time
121 minutes

Ranked in The Greatest Films of All Time poll

Sight and Sound

Who voted for Pather Panchali

Critics

Sharofat Arabova
Tajikistan
Ranjita Biswas
India
Nandana Bose
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Xan Brooks
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India
Teesha Cherian
India
Anupama Chopra
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Sangeeta Datta
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Anne Demy-Geroe
Australia
Agnes Devictor
France
Shivendra Singh Dungarpur
India
Rachel Dwyer
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Klaus Eder
Germany
Swarnavel Eswaran Pillai
USA
Ulrich Gregor
Germany
Shubhra Gupta
India
Fahmidul Haq
Bangladesh/USA
J Hoberman
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Namrata Joshi
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Robert Koehler
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Kaarel Kuurmaa
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Mike Maggiore
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Florence Maillard
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Luis Martínez
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Brian McFarlane
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Khalid Mohamed
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Michael Wood
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Directors

Imruh Bakari
Saint Kitts and Nevis/UK
Bruce Beresford
Australia
Sanjay Leela Bhansali
India
Charles Burnett
USA
Anthony Chen
Singapore
Adam Chodzko
UK
Vidhu Vinod Chopra
India
Davy Chou
France/Cambodia
Atom Egoyan
Canada
Adoor Gopalakrishnan
India
Ben Hopkins
Germany
Ahmed Jamal
UK
Nikhil Mahajan
India
Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese
Lesotho/Germany
Sir Horace Ové
UK
Sumitra Peries
Sri Lanka
Sanjeewa Pushpakumara
Sri Lanka
Gitanjali Rao
India
Riri Riza
Indonesia
Volker Schlöndorff
Germany
Shaunak Sen
Subrata Sen
India
Chaitanya Tamhane
India

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