WHAT I’VE LEARNT FROM RAY
Pather Panchali still works years after it was made because it transcends all boundaries of time and place
Unlike most Bengalis, my childhood and teenage years didn’t involve films and literature. My passion was football, instead. So, Satyajit Ray came into my life late. I watched Pather Panchali (1955) in a half-empty Siri Fort auditorium and the moment the movie ended, I had an intense urge to just go and meet Durga, Sarbajaya, and especially Indir Thakrun. The characters were so real that it seemed I might just stumble upon them any time in any village of Bengal.
RAY AND ME
Maybe I did meet them, but it was not in a village in Bengal, but at a run-down haveli in Lucknow. Many people have found similarities between Indir Thakrun and Fatto in my recent film, Gulabo Sitabo, but more than Fatto, it is another character in the film, the old, bed-ridden, halfblind, hearing and speech impaired woman, who bears some similarity with the frail, heartbreakingly lovable aunt of Pather Panchali. She was one of the inhabitants of the house we were shooting the film in, and the moment I saw her, I knew I had to use her somewhere in the film. Also, if you notice, Piku (2015) has many elements of a quintessential Ray movie, starting from the way the day-to-day functioning of a Bengali family is depicted, to the use of music. But what’s most Ray about that movie is the way Amitabh’s character’s death is treated. There is no melodrama, no high-voltage emotional outburst. Death in Ray’s movies was treated in a similar manner, as part of life itself. In fact, even in his most poignant scenes, Ray kept things minimal and that was the beauty of his film aesthetics.
NO TRIVIAL PURSUIT
Another thing I have almost subconsciously imbibed from him as a filmmaker is how he found poetry in the mundane. In fact, I don’t see him as an intellectual. I think his charm was in the ordinary. He could find beauty in the trivial and if you notice, great art that is relatable and timeless is always that which has roots in the day-to-day realities of life. In fact, if you read Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay’s novel on which Ray’s trilogy is based, it is so ordinary and so simple that it was not really much talked about at that time. I don’t think any other director would have picked up that text to adapt for the big screen – for a debut movie at that. But Ray accepts the trivial, embraces it, and then celebrates it. A minimalist to his core, he never lets his visual language become stilted; his camera never gets carried away, there is no extra flourish for effect. In fact, the West, apart from celebrating him as a Neo-Realist, was in love with the lyrical and poetic quality of Ray mesmerised them with his depiction of the natural beauty and the ethos of a quintessential Bengal village. It was by keeping things so deeply rooted in the local that he transcended into a globally acclaimed filmmaker. In fact, it is this very ‘think local, act global’ mantra that makes Iranian films so celebrated internationally today.
AGES OF INNOCENCE
Also, the Apu trilogy is essentially about the journey called life. It is a universal piece of work that transcends the boundaries of time and location. Even the least celebrated movie in the trilogy, Aparajito, which is about this young guy trying to escape pain and poverty by leaving his ageing parents and moving to a bigger city for a better future, is still so relevant. It is all of us at that age. We all find our parents ‘backdated’ after a point and often leave them to pursue our dreams. In fact, the other day, while watching Pather Panchali ,I pointed this out to my own 14-year-old who has already started to complain that I am ‘backdated!’ What I love about Pather Panchali the most is that in this film, Ray was at his rawest best. By the time he made Charulata, which he considered his personal favourite, Ray had graduated into a deft and confident filmmaker in total control of his craft. You can almost see him occasionally flaunting his skills. His films were always about visual drama and ever dialogue heavy, but it takes guts to have an entire opening sequence of a talkie movie | without any dialogue. Ray does that in Charulata. But to me, Pather Panchali is Ray at his purest. The innocence in it is almost palpable. Here, Ray is all heart. (As told to Ananya Ghosh) brunchletters@htlive.com Follow @htbrunch on Twitter Shoojit Sircar is a filmmaker and producer who is admired for his off-beat choice of subjects in cinema This is Part Five of a series of essays celebrating the legendary filmmaker, Satyajit Ray.
“WHAT I HAVE ALMOST SUBCONSCIOUSLY IMBIBED FROM RAY IS HOW HE FOUND POETRY IN THE MUNDANE... HIS CHARM WAS IN THE ORDINARY.”