Ray believed that the scenario for his first film, adapted from the popular novel by Bhibuti Bashan Bannerjee, could serve to establish a new artistic cinema for India. Inspired by Italian Neorealism, the films of Jean Renoir, and the work of writer/philosopher Rabindranath Tagore, Pather Panchali places India and its traditions into the form of a forceful modern art: realistic cinema. Telling the story of a poor Bengali scholar and writer and his wife and two children, the film makes wonderful use of exteriors and of professional and non-professional actors, who seem inseparable from the characters they play. We are taken deep into family life and especially the world of the children, who venture out to discover the wonders and difficulties of life, the pettiness of humanity, and the violence of nature.