Weds 22 Feb. 13:30, a Screen Gems screening, tickets £5
Our Screen Gems screenings showcase classic cinema, providing guided discussion in good company afterwards. And there is also a selection of fine teas on offer!
Pather Panchali (Father Panchali), Indian director Satyajit Ray’s first feature film, relates the story of an impoverished Bengalese family. When the father (Karuna Bannerjee) leaves for the city to pursue a writing career, the mother (Karuna Banerji) is left with the responsibility of caring for the rest of the brood. Gradually, the film’s true central character emerges: Apu (Subir Banerji), the family’s son. Though excruciatingly realistic at times, Pather Panchali takes occasional timeout to dwell on the purely cinematic. For example, when the mother receives a postcard bearing good news, Ray dissolves to a pond, where a pair of water skates scamper about. The music by Ravi Shankar at first seems to be at odds with the action; soon, however, we come to accept the music as a logical outgrowth of the events at hand. The scene where the children encounter a train while playing in the fields is legendary and so are many others. Simple because of its evocation of the author’s nostalgia for a childhood in harmony with the rhythms of nature. Complex because much of it has the sinister charm of a lullaby about princes, witches and demons. A multiple award winner, Pather Panchali was the first of Ray’s celebrated “Apu Trilogy” (the other two entries were 1956′s Aparajito and 1959′s The World of Apu).
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