06-28-2017, 11:56 PM
Aparajito -- Part 2 in the Apu Trilogy -- isn't nearly as powerful as Pather Panchali (Part 1). Ray hadn't really intended to revisit Apu again, but the resounding success of Pather Panchali put pressure on him to do so. Later on he said that epic projects covering a period of time aren't as dramatically compelling, and most of his later movies focus on a brief time.
Part of Aparajito's problem is that it over-milks a couple of emotional developments, to the point that the viewer starts feeling manipulated. But there is a powerful sense of time and place throughout, a further meditation on India as it was back then. So many religious and cultural trappings, and how various people spend their days -- whether it's a quack hawking medicines on a train or a storyteller (relating an episode of the Ramayana, if I wasn't mistaken) down on the wharf, or a tiny printshop owner, etc. And then there's that damned sitar music. It works so incredibly well. Despite lacking the pure magic of the first movie, this is a solid continuation of Apu growing up.
Next up is The World of Apu, which is problematic. Netflix DVD doesn't have it, nor does the Mountain View Library (both have the first two). Why the hell is that? I mean, how can you carry the first two in a famous trilogy and just neglect having the third?
I may drop Netflix DVD and switch to Filmstruck, which has a Criterion option, and which just recently gained Roku support.
A heads up on that, Yeti, should you like older movies, lots of them foreign.
Part of Aparajito's problem is that it over-milks a couple of emotional developments, to the point that the viewer starts feeling manipulated. But there is a powerful sense of time and place throughout, a further meditation on India as it was back then. So many religious and cultural trappings, and how various people spend their days -- whether it's a quack hawking medicines on a train or a storyteller (relating an episode of the Ramayana, if I wasn't mistaken) down on the wharf, or a tiny printshop owner, etc. And then there's that damned sitar music. It works so incredibly well. Despite lacking the pure magic of the first movie, this is a solid continuation of Apu growing up.
Next up is The World of Apu, which is problematic. Netflix DVD doesn't have it, nor does the Mountain View Library (both have the first two). Why the hell is that? I mean, how can you carry the first two in a famous trilogy and just neglect having the third?
I may drop Netflix DVD and switch to Filmstruck, which has a Criterion option, and which just recently gained Roku support.
A heads up on that, Yeti, should you like older movies, lots of them foreign.
I'm nobody's pony.