Apur Panchali: Rediscovering a phenomenon

Kaushik Ganguly who has been moving from strength to strength since Ar Ekti Premer Golpo reaching an acme of brilliance with Shobdo, revisits the most celebrated film in the history of Indian Cinema, Ray’s Pather Panchali, pulling out of oblivion its lead actor, extolled across the globe as the most eminent child artiste. This partly imaginary, partly real biopic of Subir Bandopadhyay (Ray’s Apu) charts the actor’s life which is remarkably, almost uncannily similar to Apu’s in several aspects.

The parallels drawn between Bandopadhyay’s life story and footages from Ray’s trilogy while locating the film in the great tradition of Indian art-house cinema (note the film is shot in ‘flat’ format, recalling yesteryear 35mm films), also celebrate that iconic moment in the history of Indian Cinema that marked a break from the past and altered film aesthetics forever. Ganguly pays homage to Ray, while, at the same time, traces the after-life of his most well-known child actor. Bandopadhyay did not have a screen life ever; his was an ordinary life away from the shutterbugs and media paparazzi; he was never really known. In this documentary-style narrative, Ganguly begins with Uma Dasgupta (Ray’s Durga) and Nemai Ghosh (Ray’s photographer) who speak about Bandopadhyay briefly before the fictionalized narrative starts unfolding. If Ganguly was deliberately mixing styles, I would ask him, why didn’t he interview the public, both in India and abroad, to reinforce his starting point? The voice of the audience is totally missing, and had Ganguly been a little more enterprising, he could have actually brought that out to corroborate that Bandopadhyay indeed is one of the most sought after child artistes of world cinema even today. The voice of the audience could have now and then intercut the narrative. This was necessary because Bandopadhyay was away from the public eye for more than half a century; he would not be recognised by anyone on the streets. Yet, he has enjoyed an enviable stardom, trapped in his child avatar. People remember him as Apu, and most people do not even know him as Subir Bandopadhyay. By making an SRFTI student pursue the fictional Subir to consent to travel all the way to Germany to receive a prestigious award, Ganguly made it seem that the actor only exits in the memory of film scholars who can go to any end to “do” anything “for” the Ray classic. The absence of the voice of the common people is indeed glaring. Remember, Pather Panchali was quite a box-office success, apart from winning unprecedented accolades in festival circuits!           

Apart from this conspicuous lack, Apur Panchali if not flawless, is quite an interesting watch. By replicating few frames and background scores from the Ray trilogy, and juxtaposing the frames with the old footages, Ganguly intelligently conflates the reel-life and real-life Apu, sometimes leaving you agape at the incredible similarities. It’s also interesting how Ganguly evokes a political context, the raging Naxalite Movement that swept across Bengal leading to the formation of the first leftist government in 1977. This connection is indeed laudable, for those were the years when neorealist Bengali cinema was time and again returning to the movement, celebrating it and anticipating a more promising future which it could herald. Mrinal Sen and Ritwik Ghatak were more articulately left-wing than Ray; but, the latter too had lent his voice in a more symbolic-allegorical way to this life-changing political tumult that rocked Bengal in the 1970s. Subir Bandopadhyay’s formative years in college and his participation in the Naxalite Movement must have roughly coincided with the release of Ray’s Calcutta trilogy. If Ganguly had been a little more scrupulous, he should have put up a few posters of one of these Ray films on the walls of the city to make the connection more hard-hitting. However, the film turns inwards from this political upheaval outside much too quickly to dwell on the domestic space of Bandopadhyay, which seems to be a partly real life enactment of Apur Sansar.

Now in his sixties, Ray’s Apu lives a solitary life in a crumbling house and seems to consciously distance himself from his screen avatar. Ray had not found him suitable for Aparajito; he had been offered other roles too, but his parents objected. He had never experienced the limelight himself. His stardom is as distant to his consciousness as are Apu and Pather Panchali today. Leading a pretty ordinary life, the aging Subir speaks with hurt pride, every time his stardom is mentioned. Ardhendu tries his best to bring out a sense of abandonment and negligence; but, what seems to irk is his obtrusive physical dissimilarity with Parambrata Chattopadhyay who plays the younger Subir. It requires a tremendous effort to suspend disbelief: how did Parambrata age into Ardhendu? No way! But, Parambrata is brilliant; Parno Mitra fits well into the character, but she needed to work on her Bengali accent. She sounds almost urban. Those playing character roles are the ones to watch out for; they remind of those luminous character artistes who lent abiding support to the heroes and heroines in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. It was good to see Shobha Sen so many years after her amazing performance as the frail grandmother in Ghosh’s Abohoman! Kaushik Ganguly’s cameo as Subir’s colleague is also marvellous. He should act more.

It’s heart-warming that despite all the Paglus and Khokababus and all other such nonsensical stuff ruling the roost in Tollywood, films such as Apur Panchali is being made and is finding an audience. Kudos to Kaushik Ganguly for sticking to his guns, despite commercial pressure! And, please note it’s Venkatesh Films which has backed this film financially! Yes, they are the ones who had generously funded Ghosh for Chokher Bali and later supported him through many films, including his last two. Aparna Sen’s Goynar Baksho too was funded by them. It’s wonderful to see them supporting such projects as Apur Panchali!

But I can’t help pointing this out. Although not really remakes, such

 films as Apur Panchali, Kamaleshwar Mukhopadhyay’s Meghe 

Dhaka Tara, and Srijit Mukherji’s Jaatishwar which was released a

 few months before and set the box-office bells ringing loud, are 

much too dependent on nostalgia to draw the urban cine-goer! No?

 Nostalgia in other words is trending now, and is cashed in upon

 much too often to lure the educated middle class Bengali audience

 back to the theatre. Come to think of it, the colossal hit Bhooter

 Bhabishyot  (Dir. Aneek Dutta), also heavily depended on

 nostalgia only! But yes, the four films I have named are also

 original in their own way...but it’s nostalgia for a more glorious 

cinematic past which drove them on. No doubts about that! But, 

it’s also disturbing in a certain way!