Pather Panchali

Satyajit Ray - 1955
Opening film of the Apu Trilogy. An extremely difficult picture to get a handle on, Ray's later style doesn't really seem to be in place except in embryonic form. There is the editing that generally cuts the space into that around the characters. There is perhaps more autonomy of the camera than in late Ray, with shots of the jugs and hands and so on, not necessarilly of the whole person.
The images are deeply beautiful, with a very high contrast and the dapplings of the forest. The interiors, seen around the characters, come across as remarkably dirty in these pitch black, inky tones. The editing is doubtless choppy and, though we hesitate to call it so for fear of such borderline-racist tags as 'naive', it does certainly seem rough, untutored (of course not true; Ray had worked with Renoir) about the shifts of pace and general editing, along with the obviously mediocre quality (in terms of the 'well made film') of equipment used.
The story is also not really following classical outlines, certainly an evocation of mood. The character of Apu is really a cute boy, a tiny beam of light caught by the camera in his eye, staring, while Durga is really the main character. One feature, without wanting to be cruel, is that it remains remarkable to see people quite so ugly, clearly down-at-heel on screen. This may perhaps refelct more on the kind of cinema I watch than on the film itself. Though surely the very fact of focussing on who it does focus on makes this film significant in 1955 and now. Fascinatingly different.