The Apu Trilogy
October 28, 2003
There has been realism in world cinema since the pioneering days of Edison and the brothers Lumiere, and every few decades a “wave” comes along and revolutionizes what we’ve come to believe as cinematic reality. Neo-realism, poetic realism, magical realism or straight out non-fiction documentary filmmaking, be it cinema-verite of the Maysles brothers and D.A. Pennebaker, or manipulative entertainment from Errol Morris or Michael Moore; it’s hard to find a topic that has been more widely debated in film history than the effects of a well intentioned piece of realist moviemaking.
When I think of the subject I usually argue for the Italians and their famous brand of Neo-realism, born out of the ruins of WWII, but perhaps the most striking, yet poetically humanistic realist work I’ve ever seen multiple times is Satyajit Ray’s ‘Apu Trilogy’ (’55-’58); a singular Indian triptych masterpiece that placed India on the artistic world film map and launched the career of one of the all time great directors. After years of only being available on VHS, Ray’s three films are finally available on DVD, regrettably with no extras, but that’s only a minor complaint, for the films themselves are cause enough for celebration and are essentials for any serious film lover.
‘The Apu Trilogy’ came about at a time in world cinema when artistry was beginning to find a whole new meaning, and popularity. In Italy, post Neo-realism, you could find Federico Fellini in the formative years as the worlds best showman, making such memorable classics as “Nights of Cabiria” and “La Strada”, while in Japan (quite possibly in the midst of the greatest “golden age” of any film era) there was Kurosawa and Mizoguchi at the height of their powers alongside the final, fruitful years of Yasujiro Ozu, the grandfather of Japanese minimalism. France, with Clouzot, Melville and Tati was gearing up for the New Wave of the ‘60’s, while in Sweden, a perfectionist with symbolism and death on the brain, Ingmar Bergman became an international superstar with “The Seventh Seal” and “Wild Strawberries”. It was, in lamens terms, THE great decade of world cinema, I’d argue more so than the ‘20’s and ‘30’s, if just for the emergence of the names listed above, and ‘The Apu Trilogy’ fits right in the middle as a kind of extension of the Italian and French codes of Neo and poetic realism, with a humanism all its own.
The trilogy begins with “Pather Panchali: Song of the Little Road”, from 1955 and co-produced by the Bengali government. It is a film about one struggling family in a poor dirt country town, circa 1910. The family consists of five people: the father, a poet and teacher, the mother, a mischievous daughter named Durga, an ancient 100-year-old aunt, and a baby, Apu, who will be the primary focus for all three films; a witness to the effects poverty has on idealism, art and family. In the span of the film Apu will age five years, and it’s easy to say that as Apu grows from a baby, to a toddler, to grade-school, his life gets harder and harder as his mind begins to comprehend the surroundings. At first he isn’t able to understand much, the passing of the old woman doesn’t mean much to him, but by the end of the film, as his beloved sister dies of a fever (symbolized moments earlier by falling water before a storm), he is fully aware of the complexities of feeling and loss.
It is key to the progress of the trilogy to watch Apu deal with death, as not only is it a major factor of life itself it seems to strike everybody in his life but himself, in quick succession. In the second film, 1956’s “Aparajito: The Unvanquished”, the best of the three, Apu grows from 5 to 23 and will see the deaths of his father and mother during his teen years in Banaras and Calcutta, bigger cities as the family moves for better opportunities. The death of the father is a particularly beautiful moment, following his collapse near the Ganges river (water is an important symbol of oncoming death throughout the films); his last breath is punctuated by a flock of doves bursting into flight. By the time the mother dies (alone and heartbroken as an ungrateful Apu is away at college, refusing to make the trip home for a holiday) he has seen his whole family taken prematurely (save for the old auntie) and is left, to begin the third film, alone in a big city, his past behind him and with little prospects to forge a better future.
The conclusion to the trilogy is “The World of Apu”, made at a time in Ray’s life where it appears he was at the pinnacle of his filmmaking artistry. It follows Apu in the years after college, alone, and struggling as a writer in Calcutta. Apu gets married (arranged and against his wishes), eventually learns to love his bride before death strikes again as she dies away from him during childbirth (death, distance, and trains are all major factors in both the wedding and departure of his bride). The trilogy concludes with Apu and his 5-year-old son walking off into the horizon, apparently happy, with the knowledge that the artistic Apu (after some dark moments with premonitions towards suicide) has now been reborn with the love of his son, who very much echoes the young Apu of “Pather Panchali”.
“The World of Apu” was made three years after the groundbreaking “Pather Panchali”, and in the time Ray developed a conscious filmmakers mind for change. There is an important sequence in the middle of the film where Apu takes his bride to the movies. They sit and watch a cheesy, typical Bollywood-esque musical, replete with tinted frames and monster masks, as the camera slowly creeps into the screen and pulls out, seemingly unbroken, to the back window of their cab on the way home; a jump cut of about two hours without an actual cut. It’s an amazing sequence, with a trick, in and of itself, so artistic that Ray could have easily been commenting on India’s filmic past, and where he already had, and planned to further take it, realistically and artistically.
Now to analyze the trilogy in full would be to talk extensively about the recurring themes, the stunning black and white compositions, the flowing camerawork, and the importance of Ravi Shankar’s sitar infested scores, but for space constraints we can limit it to Rays focus on poetic and Neo-realism. Ray shot the films in rural India, in small villages (“Pather Panchali”), and on the streets of both Banaras and Calcutta. The crumbling buildings that Apu plays in front of in “Aparajito” echoes that of DeSica’s Rome, and the dusty villages with small cats and monkeys running wild echoes Bunuel’s Mexico in “Los Olvidados”. The non-professional actors, although some had minor theatrical experience, evoke the richness and pathos of everyday life that only those familiar with such a life would know of. Karuna Banerjee as Apu’s mother is a study in devotion as her sad face watches her whole family die and her beloved Apu desert her for school, literally breaking her heart. Then there are the symbolic, poetic devices Ray uses to show death through real objects. Raindrops foreshadow Durga’s death, the father’s death is immediately linked with scattering doves, fireflies floating above a gorgeously moonlit pond foreshadow the mother’s passing, and a speeding train represents the distance between the traveling Apu and his bride as she dies during childbirth, crushing whatever spirit he had left.
It can be seen that Ray’s mastery for poetic realism started through his early studies of Renoir when the great French director came to India to film his Technicolor English language film “The River” (’51), a decidedly humanist picture. An experience that had a profound effect on the young Ray that combined with his love for DeSica’s “Bicycle Thieves” gave him the knowledge and sensibilities to produce his trilogy and open up Indian cinema (which to the time had really only been successful inside its own borders) to the world.
“The whole point of living in life,” says Apu in one of the concluding films most memorable long takes, “is to face reality.” It’s a line both prophetic and appropriate to the early career of Satyajit Ray, his landmark trilogy, and his towering place in the discussion of tried-and-true celluloid realism.
by Adam Suraf