Aparajito: Satyajit Ray

[Revisit Review]

I legitimately puzzled over whether I should give Satyajit Ray's Aparajito a 10/10 score. After all, I had already given the first entry in the Apu Trilogy, Pather Panchali (1955) (WHICH I RE-WATCHED A FEW MONTHS AGO BUT FORGOT TO EITHER WRITE A REVIEW FOR IT OR MARK IT IN MY MOVIE-WATCHING SCHEDULE), a 10/10. But re-watching it, I was struck by how sublimely Ray composed his images and handled the film's themes and tone. If Pather Panchali was the work of a gifted amateur, Aparajito was the work of a master making his first great statement.

10/10

Charulata: Satyajit Ray

Satyajit Ray's Charulata is a tragedy in three parts. That isn't to say that it's divided into three acts or scenes, but rather that it follows three different interconnected storylines that all inevitably succumb to bitter tragedy. Charu is a lonely housewife who wiles away her days in seclusion reading, dreaming, and spying on her neighbors. Bhupati, her husband, is so blinded by optimism concerning politics and his newspaper that he is oblivious to being robbed blind by his brother and to the fact that Charu has fallen madly in love with his cousin Amal. And Amal? An unmotivated slacker fresh from university, he realizes that he must leave their house and abandon any hope for happiness just when he finds purpose in life in both his writing and in his affections towards Charu. There is much to love about Charulata: its gentle yet devastating examination of its characters' emotions, a wonderful song sequence a little past the one hour mark that is unlike almost anything I have ever seen in the cinema of Satyajit Ray, the wonderful swing set scene where Charu first discovers her love for Amal, and the virtuosity of Subrata Mitra's cinematography.

8/10

Days and Nights in the Forest: Satyajit Ray

There are people much more intelligent and qualified than me who can expound on how Satyajit Ray's Days and Nights in the Forest demonstrates the literary technique of the carnivalesque. I am not sure I fully grasp the theory myself. So I can only speak on my own personal experience with this film by Bengali cinema's greatest master. The film follows four friends from varying social classes of Indian society who seek to escape into the countryside for a vacation. Their quest for societal detachment becomes a journey of self-discovery as each friend is forced to confront their own anxieties, fears, and desires. The film seems like a distant precursor to Joseph Vasquez's Hangin' with the Homeboys (1991), another film about four friends from different walks of life who seek escape from their daily lives via a brief Bacchanalian respite. Both films skillfully portray their main characters as complex, three-dimensional people who seem genuinely alive in a way that many movie characters don't. As always, Ray's work here is paced and measured. Some might be tempted to describe the film as "slow." But I was never bored with the film. There are many great directors whom I admire greatly whose work can occasionally be a chore to sit through; Dreyer and Bresson immediately come to mind. But Ray never taxes my attention span or my ability to stay awake. I hope that one day I can figure out why.

7/10