Pather Panchali
Thursday, October 23, 2003
Satyajit Ray's Pather Panchali (1955), one of my all-time favorite films, is finally being released on R1 DVD. Unfortunately, it looks like Columbia has not given it the care and attention it deserves — burned-in subtitles, a poor transfer, and no extras to speak of. (The R2 release from Artificial Eye, which I've had for several months, is only marginally better. Subtitles are removable, and it features interviews with Ray.) Still, though, I'm thrilled that it's at least available here now. Hopefully new audiences will discover it.
"The Hunger Artist," J. Hoberman's 1995 review of the film, is a great introduction to Ray and to the unique charm of this film. I especially appreciate his concluding comments:
Thus, Pather Panchali is not only the paradigmatic independent and last masterpiece of neorealism, it's also a model for that "imperfect cinema" extolled in the late '60s by Cuban cultural theorist Julio Garcia Espinosa—the new Third World film practice that "can be created equally well with a Mitchell or with an 8mm camera…no longer interested in predetermined taste, much less 'good' taste." With his skillfully unmatched compositions and suggestively elliptical editing, tricky sound bridges and understated dramatics, intuitive structure and humble subject matter, Ray made a formal virtue out of necessity.
While commercial movies were by definition opulent, Pather Panchali was, almost shockingly, concerned with hunger. (One recent critic, born in Guyana and experiencing firsthand the shock of recognition, counted 47 incidents that revolved around food.) As lyrical as Pather Panchali is, as uninsistent as its flow of imagery can be, as steeped as it is in random existence, no movie has ever been more concerned with physical survival.
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