Following Apu as a very young boy, the film mirrors the protagonist’s current state of intellectual development in its highly nuanced visuals and use of sound. Pather Panchali is a miracle of purely cinematic expression. This technique can be seen most clearly in the trilogy’s first film, in which Ray immerses the viewer in a child’s vibrant experience of the world around him. While each film is an artistic triumph in its own right, one of the most impressive aspects of the trilogy is the way in which the stylistic developments across the three films reflect the developmental evolution of its protagonist. The trilogy, some of the earliest films of master Satyajit Ray and among the first works to bring Indian cinema to the attention of international filmgoers, were based on classic Bengali writer Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s novel Pather Panchali and its sequel Aparajito. Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali (1955), Aparajito (1956), and The World of Apu (1959) form not only one of the great trilogies of cinematic history but also one of the most perfect cinematic examples of the Bildungsroman genre.

Apu pather panchali