Growing up in India I had heard of this movie as one of Satyajit Ray's classics and a movie which showed the utter poverty of rural India. Anything classic used to evoke a feeling of a movie usually boring and worse it's most likely would be a black and white film lamenting on the sorry state of human affairs. Of course those were the childhood metrics to gauge what a good film should be and thankfully I have outgrown those notions.
Nevertheless I wanted to watch this movie when Satyajit Ray died in 1992 and once again media was talking about his movies. But somehow I didn't have access to this movie anywhere (those days of VHS tapes).
I watched this movie recently and was in a stunned mode throughout the span of movie. What an emotional roller coaster ride this had been and it has been done without even making you feel that it's a movie, it's just seems real life happening in front of your eyes. I don't want to describe much the story here(as other have already commented much) but more of what I felt watching (re-watching)this movie. The beautiful and poetic flow of this movie is so smooth that you sort of start living the life as depicted. This movie conveys the reality of hard life but with such gracefulness that you don't feel utterly bad or depressed rather you start contemplating about your existence and the beauty in such mundane things that we tend to ignore. This film gives you the moment, the pause, that forces you to reflect on the meaning of life. There were many moments in the film which touched the heart in many ways: - Durga and Apu's longing for sweets and following the "misty kaka" (candy man) in hope. - Old Aunt's happiness on such small things as getting a stolen fruit, couple of stolen chillies, etc. - Mom's inner strength on managing on in a hopeless situation and shattering of it with Durga's death. - Father's wail on hearing the fate of Durga... - Apu's instinctive hiding of the truth about Durga's theft.
I am fascinated and surely will watch the other two movies in the trilogy...
Nevertheless I wanted to watch this movie when Satyajit Ray died in 1992 and once again media was talking about his movies. But somehow I didn't have access to this movie anywhere (those days of VHS tapes).
I watched this movie recently and was in a stunned mode throughout the span of movie. What an emotional roller coaster ride this had been and it has been done without even making you feel that it's a movie, it's just seems real life happening in front of your eyes. I don't want to describe much the story here(as other have already commented much) but more of what I felt watching (re-watching)this movie. The beautiful and poetic flow of this movie is so smooth that you sort of start living the life as depicted. This movie conveys the reality of hard life but with such gracefulness that you don't feel utterly bad or depressed rather you start contemplating about your existence and the beauty in such mundane things that we tend to ignore. This film gives you the moment, the pause, that forces you to reflect on the meaning of life. There were many moments in the film which touched the heart in many ways: - Durga and Apu's longing for sweets and following the "misty kaka" (candy man) in hope. - Old Aunt's happiness on such small things as getting a stolen fruit, couple of stolen chillies, etc. - Mom's inner strength on managing on in a hopeless situation and shattering of it with Durga's death. - Father's wail on hearing the fate of Durga... - Apu's instinctive hiding of the truth about Durga's theft.
I am fascinated and surely will watch the other two movies in the trilogy...