The Apu Trilogy

The Apu trilogy is a series of three films directed by Satyajit Ray. These films are Pather Panchali (Song Of The Little Road), Aparajito (The Unvanquished) and Apur Sansar (The World of Apu). The films — completed between 1955 and 1960 — were based on the works of the Bengali author Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay; they also bear the influence of Jean Renoir, Italian neorealism and Hollywood.

Plot

Template:Spoiler The films are a "coming of age" narrative, describing the childhood, education and early maturity of a young Bengali. The first film is about Apu's early experiences in rural Bengal, as the son of a poor but high caste family. His father, a Brahmin, has difficulty supporting his family. After the death of Apu's sister, the family move to the holy city of Benares, but their finances are still precarious. After his father dies, the growing Apu comes into conflict with his mother. When she too dies, he has to learn to live alone. Attempting to become a writer, he accidentally finds himself pressured to marry a girl who who has rejected her mentally ill bridegroom. Their fraught marriage ends in her death in childbirth, after which the despairing Apu abandons his child, but eventually returns to accept his responsibilities.

Acclaim

This trilogy is considered by critics around the globe to rank among the greatest achievements of Indian film, and is established as one of the most historically important cinematic debuts. Pather Panchali won 12 international prizes, followed by a Golden Lion in Venice for Aparajito and numerous other awards for Apur Sansar. When Ray made Pather Panchali he worked with a cast and crew most of whom had never been previously involved in the film medium. Ray himself at the time of directing Pather Panchali had primarily worked in the advertising industry, although he had served as assistant director on Jean Renoir's 1951 film "The River". From this foundation, Ray went on to create other highly acclaimed films, like Charulata, Mahanagar, and Aranyer Dinratri, and his international success energized other Bengal filmmakers like Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak.

Trivia

The Simpsons character Apu is named after the movie trilogy, which were among the favorite films of Simpsons creator Matt Groening.

Quote

This extract from the South African author J.M. Coetzee, talks of the music in the Apu Trilogy, which is based on Indian Classical Music. From Coetzee's Youth:

At the Everyman Cinema there is a season of Satyajit Ray. He watches the Apu trilogy on successive nights in a state of rapt absorption. In Apu's bitter, trapped mother, his engaging, feckless father he recognizes, with a pang of guilt, his own parents. But it is the music above all that grips him, dizzyingly complex interplays between drums and stringed instruments, long arias on the flute whose scale or mode - he does not know enough about music theory to be sure which - catches at his heart, sending him into a mood of sensual melancholy that last long after the film has ended.

Hitherto he has found in Western music, in Bach above all, everything he needs. Now he encounters something that is not in Bach, though there are intimations of it: a joyous yielding of the reasoning, comprehending mind to the dance of the fingers. He hunts through record shops, and in one of them finds an LP of a sitar player named Ustad Vilayat Khan, with his brother - a younger brother, to judge from the picture - on a veena, and an unnamed tabla player. He does not have a gramophone of this own, but he is able to listen to the first ten minutes in the shop. It is all there: the hovering exploration of tone-sequences, the quivering emotion, the ecstatic rushes. He cannot believe his good fortune. A new continent and all for a mere nine shillings! He takes the record back to his room, packs it away between sleeves of cardboard till the day he will able to listen to it again.

External links

• The Apu trilogy (SatyajitRay.org)