Pather Panchali (1955)

 

IMDb plot: Impoverished priest Harihar Ray, dreaming of a better life for himself and his family, leaves his rural Bengal village in search of work.

Directed by Satyajit Ray. Starring Kanu Bannerjee, Karuna Bannerjee, Uma Das Gupta, and Subir Banerjee.

The film gets a lot of praise for highlighting small daily joys that can be found even in poverty, but I'll be honest, the sadness drowned a lot of that out for me. I found Apu's mother to be the emotional center of the movie, and she is constantly, visibly feeling the strain of their poverty. She has to field the neighbors' accusations of her children stealing from them. She is forever aware of all the debts they owe. She begs her husband to ask for his backpay from his employer and even to consider moving away from his ancestral home to a more lucrative location. The film is slow and thoughtful, filled with long shots of people doing their daily work, or, for the children, playing with their friends. The use of music is especially striking, as several times during heightened emotional scenes, the sound of dialogue drops altogether and is replaced with just the score. This is especially effective during a scene when a distraught character's cries are mimicked by the wailing of the instrument. It does take work to get through - I wasn't fully engaged until about 2/3 of the way through - but it's ultimately easy to see why the film is acclaimed, even if not an instant favorite.

How it entered my Flickchart:

Pather Panchali > Once Upon a Time ...in Hollywood

Pather Panchali < The Road Warrior

Pather Panchali < Sleeping Beauty

Pather Panchali < The Revenant

Pather Panchali > Skyfall

Pather Panchali > Drunken Master

Pather Panchali > Struck by Lightning

Pather Panchali > Lord of the Flies

Pather Panchali > Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical

Pather Panchali > Black Snake Moan

Pather Panchali < A Star Is Born (1954)

Final spot: #1404 out of 3204, or 56%. This seems low, but my Flickchart is very personal to me, which means good films I don't love land lower than messy films I do.