Tuesday, 24 February 2015

Country at a crossroads

Aparajito (1956)

Directed by Satyajit Ray this sequel to Pather Panchali (1955) stars Karuna Banerjee, Smaran Ghosal, Pinaki Sen Gupta and Kanu Banerjee. Having moved to the big city the father becomes sick and dies leaving Apu and his mother with an uncertain future.

This sequel places our protagonist as a personification of India facing a choice between family, tradition and religion on one side with education and modern world to explore on the other. While I preferred the original this film is still just as interesting and has a couple of great moments of tragedy. One moment of direction stands out, the father's death, and there a number of nice call backs to symbols used in the first film.


4/5

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