322. Aparajito (The Unvanquished) (1957)

Directed By Satyajit Ray

Synopsis

Aparajito starts with Apu in Varanasi with his parents, his father is mildly successful as a priest. His father dies and his mother goes back to the countryside where Apu goes to school, eventually, due to his great success he is sent to Kolkata on a scholarship. He returns home after hearing his mother is ill, only to find he has arrived one day too late. He goes back to Kolkata.

Review

Aparajito is the second of the trilogy about the life of a Bengali boy. As such it feels very much like the middle film in the trilogy, in the first film, Pather Panchali, you got to know the characters and their environment and culture. Here that is taken as known and you jump right into the story.

This has positive and negative sides. On the positive side exposition is not necessary, you know the relationships and the condition of each character, on the other hand it doesn't feel as new as Pather Panchali and it has the typical problems of any bridge film, no real beginning or end.

Still it makes me watch the last film in the trilogy even more, the world is super-detailed, the acting is excellent and you care about the characters... now pared down to one... so you care about Apu's future. This trilogy is essential viewing for its beautiful cinematography, music, shots, acting, sets, script ... and that's all, I think. It's hard to judge parts individually, as it just feels like a whole film bigger than the sum of its parts, so when I watch the third one I will say something about the whole trilogy.

Final Grade

8/10


Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Aparajito won the Golden Lion at the 1957 Venice Film Festival. Ray got Golden Gate Awards for the Best Director in San Francisco International Film Festival in 1958 for this film. The film won "Bodil Award: Best Non-European Film of the Year" from Denmark in 1967. In 2005, The Apu Trilogy was included in Time magazine's All-time 100 greatest movies list. Roger Ebert has included The Apu Trilogy in his book Great Movies.

The film is online, here's part 1, skip to minute 3 for the film itself: