Tuesday | May 8, 2007 7:00 pm

The World of Apu
(Apur Sansar)

Screening on Film

Directed by Satyajit Ray.
With Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmila Tagore, Alok Chakravarty.
India, 1959, 35mm, black & white, 106 min.
Bengali with English subtitles.
Print source: Academy Film Archive

This final film in Satyajit Ray’s “Apu trilogy” finds the now adult Apu a struggling writer living in Calcutta. When he is called upon by a friend to fill in at an arranged marriage Apu’s life veers unexpectedly toward love and loss. "In essence the film is a love story so fresh and spontaneous that one feels Ray created it entirely out of his own spirit, as if it were the world's first love story" (Pauline Kael).