Search - Aparajito on DVD

Sarbajaya's Struggle for Meaning

Rebecca Johnson | Washington State | 04/07/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is the second film in director Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy and is best viewed after Pather Panchali and followed by The World of Apu. Harihar (Kanu Bannerjee) takes his wife, Sarbajaya (Karuna Bannerjee) and their son Apu to live in Benares. Their family home has been destroyed in the monsoon and with the loss of their daughter, they are struggling to cope emotionally as well as financially.

I found this movie to be more about the struggle Sarbajaya (Apu's mother) faces on a daily basis. She is an example of a woman who has given up her desires for the good of her family. As she cares for her family on a daily basis you can see how she is sinking into the darkest of depression. Not only is she terribly lonely, she does not fully recover from the loss of her daughter. While she is surrounded by members of her immediate community, she seems to strangely isolated and alone and the unfulfilled desires of her heart seem to weave an invisible and yet debilitating cocoon around her soul.

Throughout this movie, her sacrifice becomes even more beautiful as it allows Apu to see some of his own dreams come to fruition. Apu's father makes his living reading sacred texts by the shores of the Ganges River and then suddenly falls ill. Apu must continue his education and find his own way in this harsh world.

I love the scene where Apu pretends to miss the train and when his mother worries about what they are feeding him at school. The first few scenes also show birds sitting on umbrellas and then taking off suddenly. Could this be a foreshadowing for the situation in which Apu finally finds himself? I found these movies have quite a few "foreshadowing" moments that I only recognized on the second viewing. Which is why the Apu Trilogy must be watched more than once to be fully appreciated. These are finely woven stories that deal with the deepest human issues we all must face at some point in our lives.

~The Rebecca Review"

Deeply moving film

D. Pawl | 10/23/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It is incredibly difficult to review any film by Satyavit Ray because he is an artist without peer...director, screen writer, composer. Unlike so many Hollywood films, Ray's films seem real, not contrived and stike at the core of our feelings. His film , Aparajito, is one of the Apu trilogy (be sure to see all three including "The World of Apu" and "Pather Panchali"). This is a luminous depiction of a family tragedy. But like other of Ray's films, it leads to a personal "epiphany", a deeper understanding of the meaning of our lives."

Simple and touching

dilip | Bellevue, WA USA | 04/08/1999

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is something I've found common to all Satyajit Ray movies: they're very simple; they deal with everyday life (well everyday for an Indian in the 50s, I guess) and ordinary people. There are no larger-than life heroes, or villains for that matter; he doesn't talk about memorable events or catastrophes; no dramatic tales of lovers fighting to survive the trials of cruel fate... and yet he manages to touch you very deeply. Personally, I don't understand a word of Bengali (which is the language most of his films are in), yet his movies have a lot of impact. I highly recommend this and any other Satyajit Ray movie you can get your hands on."

What makes a man?

Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 06/21/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This was the second entry of a famous Trilogy (Panther Pancahli was the first one and The world of Apu the last one). Satyajit Ray was essentially, a poet of the image, an untiring searcher of the total expression about cinema means. His notable traveling, his expressive close ups, the admirable sense of the contrasts, that confers him a superb status among the giants of the world cinema.

Aparajito is fundamentally, the story of a boy who becomes a man through a rigorous process of growing up. After his father's death. Apu decides to study in Calcutta, despite the ferrous opposition of his mother; so against all odds, he makes the journey(once more the unerring mythic seed beneath the plot), and he demonstrates to be a very clever and intelligent pupil. The adolescence is by definition, an age of sudden changes, meditations and doubts. Far from his birth land he will know and deal with those little miseries of the life but also with the significance of the personal effort as a continuous work in progress.

Arresting images, sharp contrasts with the Ganges river working out as a big frame, a realist script with towering performances make of this movie one of the best films in cinema's story without a bit of doubt.

A must-see.
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