The Apu Trilogy

The Apu Trilogy

The “Apu Trilogy” is an epic sweep of the great, sad world that remains with the moviegoer as a promise of what film can be. Above fashion, it creates another life for us to have lived. These three films were made in India by Satyajit Ray between 1950 and 1959. They won all the top prizes at Cannes, Venice and London, and created a new cinema for India which had been making mostly swashbuckling musical romances.

Ray (1921-1992) was a commercial artist in Calcutta with no money and no connections when he decided to adapt a famous serial novel about the birth and young manhood of Apu: Born in a rural village, raised in Benares, educated in Calcutta, vagabonding his way around afterward.

The legend of the first film is inspiring; how on the first day Ray had never directed a scene, his cameraman had never photographed one, his child actors hadn’t even been tested for their roles and how that early footage was so impressive it won the modest financing for the rest of the film. Even the music was by a beginner: Ravi Shankar.

The trilogy opens with “Pather Panchali,” shot between 1950 and 1954. Here we tell Apu’s story from when he is a boy living with parents, older sister and ancient aunt in the ancestral village where his father–a priest–has returned against mother’s better judgment. Second film “Aparajito” (1956) follows them to Benares where father makes living from pilgrims come to bathe in holy Ganges.

Third film “The World of Apu” (1959) finds Apu and mother living with uncle in country; boy does so well at school wins scholarship to Calcutta where under extraordinary circumstances he gets married but loses wife and mother. After a period of bitter drifting he returns at last to take up his son’s burden.

This synopsis does not begin to suggest the beauty and mystery of these films, which are not biographies in the punched-up manner but more like what the English title of the first film calls them: “The Song of the Road.” The actors who play Apu from about 6 to 29 all have a moody, dreamy quality–Apu is never sharp, hard or cynical, but an idealistic innocent moved by vague yearnings rather than blueprints. He is a product of a society that does not put ambition first, but is philosophical, accepting, hopeful.

He is his father’s child; during the first two films we see how his father always hopes something will turn up that new schemes and ideas will work out. It is the mother who worries about money owed relatives; food for children; future. In her eyes (which are always looking after children) throughout all three films we see realism and solitude as husband then son blithely go off to city leaving her behind wondering waiting.

The third film contains the most amazing sequence of all three films, when Apu goes to the wedding of Pulu’s cousin. On this day, everything has to be perfect according to astrology. However, when the bridegroom arrives he is completely insane and therefore sent away by the bride’s mother. But then there arises a problem: If Aparna doesn’t marry on this day she will be cursed forever. So Pulu begs Apu who returns as the husband of his own wife having left Calcutta to attend a marriage.

Sharmila Tagore was only 14 when she played Aparna in this movie; she gives off an air of delicate shyness mixed with tenderness as we watch her adjust herself suddenly being wedded against her will with someone whom she knows nothing about other than that he comes from another city far away called Kolkata (Calcutta).

“Can you accept living in poverty?” asks Apu who lives alone under one roof while supporting himself through scholarships and odd jobs at various printing presses around town where he earns few rupees each week for his pocket money which he spends mostly on books related mainly to science fiction or detective stories but sometimes also including classic novels such as those written by Rabindranath Tagore himself (who coincidentally happens.

Yes,’ said Aparna simply without looking into his eyes even once something seemed wrong here since it should have been she who asked him whether he can accept living poorly rather than vice versa like what just happened now?

She wept upon arrival in Calcutta but soon after sweetness & love began streaming forth out thru her eye sockets instead while still retaining its earlier innocence which however would never come back again later on anyway because soon afterwards another part died inside her forevermore leaving only bitterness + hate behind which shall remain so till eternity itself ceases altogether thereby bringing about complete annihilation everywhere without exception whatsoever whatsoever whatsoever whatsoever whatsoever whatsoever whatsoever whatsoever whatsoever whatsoever.

In addition to this, Chatterjee shares with an innocent delight until she dies during childbirth; it becomes the end of his innocence and, for a long time, hope.

The actors in the films were all cast from life to type; Italian neorealism was fashionable in the early 1950s, and Ray would have heard and agreed with the theory that everyone can play one role himself. The most amazing performer in the movies is Chunibala Devi, who plays the old auntie, stooped double, deeply wrinkled.

When shooting started she was 80; she had been an actress many years before but when Ray found her she was living in a brothel and thought he had come looking for a girl. Notice how she appears at the door of another relative after Apu’s mother gets mad at her and tells her to leave: “Can I stay?” She has no home, nothing but her clothes and a bowl, but she doesn’t seem desperate because she embodies complete acceptance.

The relationship between Apu and his mother observes truths that must exist universally: how the parent sacrifices for years only to see the child turn away thoughtlessly into adulthood. Having gone to live with a relative as little better than a servant (“they like my cooking”), when Apu comes to visit during a school vacation he sleeps or loses himself in books, answering her with monosyllables. He seems eager to get away from her but has second thoughts at the train station and returns for one more day. The movie says everything there is to say about lonely parents whose children don’t pay attention.

I saw “The Apu Trilogy” recently over three nights and thought about it every day between viewings. It takes place in a time, a place and among people very different from us I guess around 1920 somewhere near Calcutta and yet it connects directly and deeply with our human feelings. It is like a prayer that this is what movies can be whatever depths of cynicism we may sink into about them.

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