In the late 1950s, the great Indian film director Satyajit Ray made three films about the life of a little boy from the slums of Bengal. The first, Pather Panchali, is one of the great directorial debuts of all time. It sets the bar extremely high for the other films that would follow, and it's simply a slice-of-life narrative chronicling the community and characters within one microcosm of the Bengali region. Pather Panchali really isn't even about Apu. The films are told from Apu's perspective, but he isn't even born until about 30 minutes in. The story is really about his father and his struggles to provide for the family. There's a lot of factors that make this first film great, namely the Capra-esque characters, score from the immortal Ravi Shankar, and Ray's economical style of shooting. Night scenes are particularly interesting; the frame is lit in such a way that the audience sees only what they need to see.
I'd argue that the second film in the trilogy, Aparajito, is the weakest, but it's still well worth your time. This one picks up some time after the first film leaves off and sees Apu heading off to university in Calcutta. As Apu undergoes a series of trials and tribulations in a new place, it's interesting to see how his conflicts parallel and differ from his mother's back at home. It's a bit more difficult to gauge how Apu changes as a character in this film. You're just waiting for him to really grow up the whole time. That changes in part three.
The third film, Apur Sansar, delivers what the second film sorely lacks: a love interest. Apu is now grown up, jobless, but dreaming of becoming a novelist. When a friend asks Apu to accompany him to his sister's wedding, a fortuitous turn of events find Apu married. With marriage comes real-world commitments that Apu may or may not be ready for. The best thing about Apur Sansar is that, unlike the other two films, it shows Apu's evolution from a reluctant college boy to a world-ready man. Even though Apu is in his mid-late 20s, this is really the only coming-of-age story in the entire trilogy.
All three films are written and directed by Ray, and all feature spectacular original music from Shankar. These films have an interesting history with the original negative prints being badly charred in a nitrate fire at Henderson's Film Laboratories in London, England. Shortly after the incident, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences gained control of the negatives and preserved them in their archives for 20 years. In 2013, the Academy opened their archives to the folks at Criterion who were able to recover the negatives and remaster them in 4K. Considering the state these films were in for 20 years, it's miraculous how amazing the image quality is. It's not as perfect as I had first hoped; there's still plenty of visible scratches and banding, but again, considering the history, I don't think anyone is going to complain. There are still a few months until November when Criterion is rumored to be releasing the trilogy on Blu-ray. Maybe their restoration team will have completed some additional work by then.
At any rate, The Apu Trilogy may be one of the finest in the history of world cinema. I'd recommend it to audiences of all ages as well as anyone who can appreciate film as an art form.
A+
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