Pather Panchali: A study of the film

Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali

The prolific Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray once defined his cinematic aesthetic as follows:

Realism in film is not the naturalism of the painter who sets up his easel before his subject and proceeds to record faithfully what he sees. For a film maker there is no ready-made reality that he can straightaway capture on film. What surrounds him is only raw material. He must at all times use this material selectively. Objects, locales, people, speech, viewpoints - everything must be carefully chosen, to the serve the ends of his story. In other words, creating reality is part of the creative process, where the imagination is aided by the eye and the ear (Ray 20-21).

In what follows, we will analyze Ray's most famous film, Pather Panchali, from the standpoint of this doctrine of cinematic realism. In doing so, we will draw comparisons with the Italian neo-realist film that had the greatest influence on Ray's burgeoning aesthetic, the Bicycle Thief. In considering the two films together, we hope to show the ways in which neo-realist filmmaking effectively subverted the dominant filmmaking paradigm of Hollywood in the mid-20th century.

The Plot

Pather Panchali takes place in the Bengali countryside in the 1920s. The film tells the story of a family, at the center of which is a young boy, Apu, who is played in the film by Subir Banjeree. The father of Apu is Harihar Ray (Kanu Banjeree). The family lives in Nischindipur, a tiny village, which is Harihar's ancestral home. They are incredibly poor. Harihar is barely able to support the family, etching out a meager existence as a priest. He dreams of becoming an esteemed writer, and works at night on his plays and poetry, but to little avail. Harihar's main problem is that he is too trusting of other people. This is something that is wife, Sarbajaya (Karuna Banerjee), complains about early on in the film. She feels that he is too trusting of his employers, and they take advantage of him as a result. They promise him pay, but do not pay him. When he is being exploited, he seldom has the courage to demand his rightful salary. As a result, the family is now heavily in debt. They are also unable to take care of basic household expenses, as a result of which, their daughter Durga (Uma Dasgupta) has taken to stealing - much to the mother's consternation.

Much of the stress of the family's day-to-day existence seems to fall on Sarbajaya. Not only does she have to look after the two children, she is also faced with the burden of looking after her elderly sister-in-law, Indir Thakrun, who is portrayed by Chunibala Devi. Despite the fact that the woman is so old she is practically on the verge of death, Sarbajaya nonetheless resents the fact that she has to share her precious home and resources with the old woman. While we empathize with Sarbajaya's plight, we also feel sorry for the old woman - she bends over when she walks, has no teeth, and is obviously unable to take care of herself. She thus rounds out the principle cast, and helps to evoke a very real feeling of helplessness that seems to haunt all of the characters' lives.

Durga is one of the few characters who feel any real empathy towards Indir. Whenever she steals fruit from the neighbors, she inevitably winds up sharing it with the old woman. Again, it is Sarbajaya who must suffer as the result of her daughter's behavior - the neighbors yell at her and humiliate her in front of the whole village, holding her personally responsible for her daughter's sticky fingers. At a key moment of tension in the film, Durga is implicated in the disappearance of a little girl's beaded necklace. After a heated confrontation, Durga denies having stolen the necklace. Nonetheless, she is severely punished by her mother, revealing the violence that poverty ultimately leads people to commit.

As siblings, Durga and Apu are very close. They seem to realize that they can only rely on each other, given the harsh circumstances that they live in. While Durga teases her brother relentlessly, she also takes care of him in a motherly way, as the family's real mother is so busy tending to day-to-day matters that she can hardly look after the children round the clock. The scenes with Durga and Apu playing together are some of the happiest moments in the entire film. When a man selling sweets drives by the house one day, the children are too poor to buy anything from him. Instead, they decide to follow him on his rounds - and have almost more fun in the process than they would have had they actually gotten to purchase some of his wares. In another typical scene, they enjoy a performance by a traveling theatre group that comes to their village. One day, after having heard a train go by their house, they decide to go catch a glimpse of the train, having never seen one before. Shortly after this exciting episode, the children go play in the woods, where they discover the corpse of their Aunt Indir, who had been kicked out of the family home by their mother.

Indir's death occurs while Harihar is away. He has left the village behind in a desperate attempt to make money elsewhere. He promises to return soon with enough money to pay off their debts and fix up the house, which is falling to pieces. As he stays away for longer and his letters grow increasingly seldom, Sarbajaya grows increasingly depressed. The family sinks into terrible poverty, and Sarbajaya becomes very depressed, owing to loneliness and isolation.

One day, with the father still gone, the monsoon season arrives. The first monsoon occurs while the children are out playing one day. While Apu runs under a tree in order to seek shelter, his sister stays out for a particularly long time in order to dance in the rain. As a result of this foray, she becomes seriously ill. She eventually catches a fever. Then, one night, during a particularly fierce storm that completely desecrates the family home, she dies.

The girl's death leaves the mother devastated. She appears to be at the end of her wit. One day, the father returns home. Harihar excitedly begins unpacking his bags, showing his wife all of the wonderful gifts he has bought for the family from the city. It is when he unveils the new sari he has bought for Durga that the mother breaks down and begins to cry. It is at this point that the father realizes that he has lost so much by going away in order to provide for the family on a material level.

At the end of the film, the family decides to leave the village once and for all. The storm that took place the night that Durga died has completely ravaged the house beyond repair. What is more, they are all still haunted by memories of Durga. Even though the father had previously shied away from the prospect of leaving his ancestral village, he realizes that it has only brought him bad luck. Thus, in the final shot of the film, we see Apu and his parents riding off to their new destination on a card led by oxen. We do not know where they are going, but are left with a strong feeling of empathy for them in their helpless plight.

Narrative & Style

Ray realized early on, before he even began making films, that Hollywood exerted a powerful effect on Indian filmmakers - oftentimes, to the detriment of the films being made in his native country. As he wrote in 1948 - nearly a decade before Pather Panchali would be realized:

The superficial aspects of the American style, no matter how outlandish the content, were imitated with reverence. Almost every passing phase of the American cinema has had its repercussion on the Indian film. Stories have been written based on Hollywood successes and the cliches preserved with care. Even where the story has been a genuinely Indian one, the background music has revealed an irrepressible penchant for the jazz idiom (Ray 21-22).

After encountering Italian neo-realist cinema in the form of the famous film the Bicycle Thief, Ray was able to find an escape route from the Hollywood formula. The Bicycle Thief opened up a world of possibility for the fledgling director, a world in which it was possible to reflect the problems of the real world rather than developing an escapist fantasy to serve as the "opiate of the masses."

From the standpoint of narrative adaptation - an important issue in this case, as Pather Panchali was adapted from a novel - Hollywood tends to do one of two things. They either distort the original plot in order to make sure it conforms to the crude Hollywood formula, or they make the screenplay so faithful to the original that there is little reason for a film version of the story to exist.

Ray also believed that Hollywood presented a world that was completely foreign and at odds with the reality of life in India. Why, then, had so many previous Indian filmmakers attempted to copy the Hollywood style? The result could only be failure. It was for this reason that Ray decided to turn his back on the Hollywood aesthetic altogether - and the result was Pather Panchali. Rather than the stylistic gloss that Hollywood coats its product with, Ray allowed a significant degree of "dirt" in to his film as a way of arguing with the dominant aesthetic.

In doing so, Ray purposefully chose a "rambling" novel to adapt for his first film. "The script," he later explained, "had to retain some of the rambling quality of the novel because that in itself contained a clue to the feel of authenticity: life in a poor Bengali village does ramble" (Ray 33). Indeed, rather than attempt to conform to the Hollywood entertainment model of a movie, in which the story is filled with exciting "action" that gradually progresses towards a cliche climax, Pather Panchali at times feels as though it is going nowhere. Rather than boring the viewer, however, this has the opposite effect. It gives us precise insight in to the banality of life in a small Indian village in the 1920s, while underlining the devastating nature of the characters' lives. In this sense, Pather Panchali is very true to life. It focuses on the humanistic quality of life, rather than some pre-ordained plot that is guaranteed to entertain its audience for a couple of hours.

Humanism was obviously what Ray was attempting to capture in his film. Perhaps the reason why he was able to paint such a moving, realistic picture of humanity is because he treated his actors in such a humanistic fashion. He would later recall,

Another important factor - and I would not want to generalize on this - was the human one. In handling my actors I found it impossible to get to the stage of impersonal detachment where I could equate them with so much raw material to be moulded and remoulded at will. How can you make a woman of eighty stand in the hot midday sun and go through the same speech and the same actions over and over again while you stand by and watch with half-closed eyes and wait for the precise gesture and tone of voice that will mean perfection for you? This meant, inevitably, fewer rehearsals and fewer takes (Ray 34-35).

Again, we are reminded of the purposeful "lack of polish" that remains one of the most stunning features of the film. Rather than aiming for perfection, Ray aimed for capturing authenticity.

The privileging of authenticity over perfection put Ray firmly in line with the recent evolution of realist filmmaking - in particular, Italian neo-realist filmmaking. Ray acknowledged his debt to the film the Bicycle Thief early on, going so far as to say that it was his viewing of this film in London that enabled him to make Pather Panchali. It is thus worth turning to the Bicycle Thief to analyze the similarities and differences between the two films in terms of both plot and style.

The Bicycle Thief explores the life of one Antonio Ricci, played by Lamberto Maggiorani, a poor worker without a job attempting to support his family in the depressed era of post-Word War II. One day, he is lucky enough to land a job in the nearby city of Rome. In order to do the job, however, he will need a bicycle. Unfortunately, Antonio's bicycle is broken. He cannot afford to get it out of the shop. His wife, Maria, thus decides to sell her bed sheets, which were given to her as part of her dowry, in order to finance the repair of the bike.

Things seem to be going well for Antonio at his new job, which is putting up posters around Rome. But then, on his first day, something terrible happens - the bike is stolen. For the remainder of the movie, Antonio will travel around Rome with his young son, Bruno (Enzo Staiola), in search of the bike. Eventually, they are able to track down the thief at his home. Of course, the bicycle has already been sold by that point, and when the police are summoned, Antonio finds that he has no way of proving that the thief actually stole the bike from him. Thus, he realizes that he cannot press charges against him. With the thief's neighbors plotting against him, willing to give the thief a false alibi in order to protect him from the police, Antonio realizes that his cause is completely hopeless, so he walks away.

Out of desperation, Antonio then attempts to steal a bicycle himself in order to keep his job. The effort fails, however, as Antonio is immediately caught. He is then humiliated in front of his young son. The owner of the bicycle decides not to press charges once he sees that Antonio's humiliation is punishment enough. By the time the film ends, we realize that Antonio's future will be very tough indeed.

As with Ray's film, the Bicycle Thief makes no effort to give us a Hollywood-style happy ending. True, life is not always so miserable - and both films contain some light moments. But ultimately, the harder side of reality wins out, as both films are meant to drive home the idea that poverty has a detrimental effect on the human soul. It is interesting to note that both films emphasize the idea that poverty drives people to commit crimes. In Pather Panchali, the mother savagely beats her daughter when the daughter is accused of stealing from a neighbor. She is thus committing a crime as a means of retribution for her daughter's committing a crime. Of course, the daughter would never have committed the crime were she not in such a disadvantaged socio-economic position as the friend she stole from. And in the Bicycle Thief, Antonio himself - the victim of a crime - is turned in to a criminal, out of desperation.

It is also interesting to note that in both films, the children become disturbingly cognizant of their lot in life. In Pather Panchali, the daughter is constantly grappling with the fact that are good friend is from a richer family. When her friend's marriage is arranged, it suddenly dawns on her that she might never get to enjoy marriage. After all, no family would want their son to take a girl from such a poor family as a bride.

In the Bicycle Thief, Bruno realizes the discrepancy between him and his father and a wealthy family in the famous pizzeria sequence. As they sit down to order, Bruno cannot help but look at the deluxe meal that another little boy is getting to enjoy at a nearby table. Bruno and his father only have enough money to order some bread with mozzarella on it; the rest of the money Antonio insists on spending on a liter of wine, as he wishes to get drunk in order to forget his ill fortune. Antonio encourages the boy to drink with him, but Bruno is not interested in getting drunk. He only wants to eat a meal as nice as the boy his age at the next table. But he knows that he cannot.

Another thing that the two films have in common is the fact that they both featured casts of largely non-professional actors. Maggiorani, the actor who played the lead role in the Bicycle Thief, was a factory worker who had no previous experience with acting prior to this film. The actress who portrayed Sarbajayaba in Pather Panchali had been an amateur theatre actress prior to acting in the film. The role of Apu was cast after Ray's wife spotted a boy in their neighborhood who looked like he could play the part; he had had no prior acting experience, either. A few of the other performers had experience acting with amateur theatre groups, but the vast majority of them were newcomers to film.

The idea behind using untrained actors seemed to be a deliberate ploy at undermining the "polish" of the Hollywood system, as it has been defined by Ray in his essays. This makes the process of filmmaking a lot more vital - not to mention risky:

Sometimes you are lucky and everything goes right in the first take. Sometimes it does not and you feel you will never get what you are aiming at. The number of takes increases, the cost goes up, the qualms of conscience become stronger than the urge for perfection and you give up, hoping that the critics will forgive and the audience will overlook. You even wonder whether perhaps you were not being too finicky and the thing was not as bad or as wrong as you thought it was (Ray 35).

Filmmaking thus becomes a revolutionary art form - in terms of process, style, and content.

It is no coincidence that such a revolutionary form of theatre would also have revolutionary - namely leftist - themes. Both films - Pather Panchali and the Bicycle Thief alike - are essentially about the evils that are caused by economic inequality. While a more conservative form of cinema would portray its poor characters as degenerate drug addicts - people who somehow "deserved" their sorry fate - these films portray social problems in a totally humanistic light. The adult male protagonists of both films embody goodness and purity of intention - they desire only to work hard in order to support their families. What personal ambitions they do have are cast aside in order to attain this goal. But fate intervenes, preventing each of the men from attaining it. In the case of the Bicycle Thief, it is obvious - someone has stolen his bike, he cannot get it back. In Pather Panchali, it is more subtle, rooted in Bengali tradition, and thus metaphysical rather than actual. It has to do with the father's heritage, and the fact that he wishes to remain in the village of his ancestors, despite the fact that there are very limited options for work there. In the end, this fact overwhelms him to a tragic degree, to the extent that he realizes he must effectively turn his back on his heritage and leave the village in order to continue to live.