The treatment of old age is one of the most profound ever seen on the screen. The film fuses all aspects of picture-making into a moving whole that shows India perceptively for the first time to a Western audience. Two adolescents, a boy and his sister grow up in this atmosphere. poetically and lyrically unfolds a tender but penetrating tale of coming of age in India, a land of poverty but also of spiritual hope. It won the 1955 National Award for best film and was named the best human document at Cannes in 1956.ĪLSO READ | Satyajit Ray's 'Pather Panchali' declared best Indian film of all time by FIPRESCIĪt that time, Variety had commented: “The film. “The film’s captivating images include chasing after a passing train and playing in a monsoon, which adds up to a pure and soul-nourishing experience.” Ray’s film, based on Bibhuti Bhushan Bandyopadhyay’s 1929 novel of the same name, featured a little-known cast and was produced by the Government of West Bengal on a shoestring budget. Like a regional riff on Italian Neorealism, the inherently humanist Pather Panchali is both a loving portrait of a mostly matriarchal upbringing and an awe-inspiring vision of rural life, as reflected through the impressionable eyes of its young protagonist.” “Restrained but also universally relatable, the Bengali filmmaker’s debut is the first of those three movies, which put Indian cinema on the international art-house map.

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