One of the most stunning feature film debuts of all time, Ray’s years-in-the-making adaptation of Bandopadhyay’s celebrated novel seems barely contained by the cinema screen. Its undeniable lifeforce naturally spilled out onto a stunned international film world, propelling Ray to instant renown, and continuing to awe audiences new to its spell. With apparently very little in the way of a written script, Ray followed his drawings, notes and the dialogue in his head, which perhaps accounts for the graphic visual style and mesmerizing, naturalistic rhythm. Working with a mix of actors and nonactors, inexperienced technicians, and changing equipment in an unfamiliar rural setting, using mostly natural light and locations, the emerging, inventive cinema eye of Ray is as wide and encompassing as that of the young Apu at the start of his life’s journey. Born to a cynical mother and dreaming, impractical father who barely make ends meet, Apu is guided by his sweet and mischievous older sister Durga—played to subtle, complicated perfection by Uma Das Gupta—as well as his old, neglected auntie and the surrounding wild world that often dissolves into their own. Apu and Durga find magic and meaning, truth and tragedy amid the tangled beauty and brutality of their existence. Fortified by an enchanting soundtrack featuring Ravi Shankar, Ray’s quietly revolutionary experiment brings the family’s remote realm so close that even after the film is long over, its delicate electricity still hangs in the air.

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