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15 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
continuation of a masterpiece, 12 August 2002
10/10
Author: tc707 from edmonton

Ray's 'Aparajito' continues with its second installment as we see the beautiful but harsh world through the eyes of 'Apu'. Ray's portrayal of Apu's innocence and curiosity during his maturation into adolescence was spectacular. However, the pinnacle of the film is heart wretching performance of Apu's Mother, whose portrayal of fretfulness, nurturing, and loneliness pulled at this reviewer's heart strings. Although this film is filled with moments of sadness and despair, this film is about Apu weathering the seemingly endless storm of personal tragedy and eventually reaching maturation.

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14 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Documentary/Fiction, 27 November 2003
Author: Steven Wren from Los Angeles, CA

Each of the three films of the Apu Trilogy exhibit the extraordinary quality of a documentary film on the conditions of life in India at the time they are set. I think this is what I like best in them through numerous viewings. The films are shot in locations that appear untouched by any art department - remote countryside in Bengal, the great cities - Benares and Calcutta. The characters eke out an adequate life in their sufficient poverty - a life sustained by their faith and simple devotion to one another. At the same time there are moments that are pure cinema. There is an exquisite swish pan cut from Kurana (the mother) leaning against a tree, full of emptiness as Apu has just left for Calcutta, to the swift dynamo of the train crossing a bridge with the trestles a blur. At the moment Kanu (the father) gives up his soul a flock of birds alights over the Ganges. Later as Kurana is gradually sinking into the depths of loneliness - a sickness unto death - she has a vision of fireflies swirling around in the falling darkness.

These films traverse the drama of life and death touching gently on all of the salient points along the path. They put us face to face with the challenge of living in a world, which constantly gives us disappointment. At the same time there is a celebration of that ineffable quality which gives life meaning.

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9 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Another Masterpiece from Ray, 7 November 1999
10/10
Author: George Tetsel (citizenkane@lycosmail.com) from New York

'Aparajito', the second film of Satyajit Ray's brilliant 'Apu Trilogy', is one of the great masterpieces of film. The gritty realism melds expertly with the beautiful shot selection and cinematography. In fact, I would say Ray's India is presented at least as well as John Ford's American West. What is essentially a simple tale of one particular family turns into an epic of emotion and the difficulties of growing up. Truly amazing.

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8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Documentary/Fiction, 27 November 2003
Author: Steven Wren from Los Angeles, CA

Each of the three films of the Apu Trilogy exhibit the extraordinary quality of a documentary film on the conditions of life in India at the time they are set. I think this is what I like best in them through numerous viewings. The films are shot in locations that appear untouched by any art department - remote countryside in Bengal, the great cities - Benares and Calcutta. The characters eke out an adequate life in their sufficient poverty - a life sustained by their faith and simple devotion to one another. At the same time there are moments that are pure cinema. There is an exquisite swish pan cut from Kurana (the mother) leaning against a tree, full of emptiness as Apu has just left for Calcutta, to the swift dynamo of the train crossing a bridge with the trestles a blur. At the moment Kanu (the father) gives up his soul a flock of birds alights over the Ganges. Later as Kurana is gradually sinking into the depths of loneliness - a sickness unto death - she has a vision of fireflies swirling around in the falling darkness.

These films traverse the drama of life and death touching gently on all of the salient points along the path. They put us face to face with the challenge of living in a world, which constantly give us disappointment. At the same time there is a celebration of that ineffable quality which gives life meaning.

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8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
My Introduction To Satyajit Ray, 30 November 2002
10/10
Author: David (davidals@msn.com) from Chapel Hill, NC, USA

Even as the middle segment of a trilogy, this was my introduction to Satyajit Ray, turning me into an instant fan, and is one of the greatest films I've seen. The neo-realist leanness the film is completely absorbing & is perfectly matched to the characters. Not having been to India, I'll admit to being unsure of how true to reality the look of the film is, but Ray's gift for detail is in a league of its' own - I consider the opening scenes (establishing shots from Benares intercut with shots of young Apu running through narrow lanes) to be among cinema's most memorable moments, and a great example of allowing images and rhythm to tell a story. I don't want to overstate it, but this is a really beautiful, haunting film - from it's warmest to it's most tragic elements, I was thinking about it for quite a while afterwards. APARAJITO is obviously the work of a genuinely enthusiastic filmmaker, and also a great thinker as well - every cinephile should see it. Would love to see all of Ray's work available in the US, and on DVD.

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9 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
I saw it in a theatre in Houston, 7 October 2005
10/10
Author: Shamim Huq from Houston, Texas, USA

We saw the movie in a theatre in Houston. It was a sizeable crowd. And when the movie ended, there was a long silence as folks gathered themselves from an emotional experience they probably had never experienced. As we slowly walked out and went to the underground parking garage, we noticed several couples were still contemplating the movie as they sat silently in their cars.

Aparajito or the Unvanquished, promotes the human spirit. We will all pass away, but it is how we live and struggle is what counts. As the recent Storms in our part of the world had shown great losses to the lives of many, yet we must continue with our struggle on a path of goodness and decency against insurmountable odds at times.

Aparajito will forever engrave in your hearts the choices we face in our lives and what is important and what is fluff? See the movie and let us hear from you.

Again it is movie making at its peak.

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9 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Ray's finest film?, 31 July 2003
8/10
Author: Neel Chaudhuri from Warwick, UK

I am always a bit dismayed by the attention that Pather Panchali and Charulata command in discussions on Ray because while they are fine films, they do not account for Ray's cinema as a whole. In fact, I would resist from picking one or even three films that 'speak for Ray'- but I would be lying if I said I didn't have a favourite. Aparajito is a wonderful work of art, an extremely moving melodrama and a remarkably accurate portrayal of adolescence. Of course, it would be shameful to give all the credit to Ray. Bibhuti Bhusan Bandhyopadhaya's novels (Aparajito is adapted from the last part of Pather Panchali and the first half of Aparajito) are meticulously descriptive and Ray's success with the film owes much to the simplicity and honesty of his source. But there is something in Aparajito that belongs exclusively to the cinema - something that has to do with the the mixture of distance and intimacy in the movies, of identification and unfamiliarity. You want to feel like Aparajito is a film about you, but you secretly admit that it isn't, it cannot be - because you experience it outside yourself, in Ravi Shankar's beautiful music, in the photography that oscillates between banality and the deeply metaphoric, in the wonderful performances (especially by Karuna Bannerjee), and finally in Ray's masterful vision in putting it all together. I couldn't say much else - you must experience it for yourself!

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8 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
An Impeccable masterpiece, 30 July 2006
10/10
Author: soujatya10 from Pennsylvania, United States

I was 14 when I watched "Aparajito" and I still remember weeping irrepressibly as the film eventually resonated in my heart and mind forever. Unarguably, the greatest film of all-time, its like a celestial creation. How humane a man can be, how perfect a man can be, how realistic a man can be.....I often think when I watch Satyajit Ray's films. I have seen masterpieces by Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Bergman, Orson Welles, Michelangelo Antonioni and the likes, but Satyajit Ray's films stands so different and unique from them. How does he manage to craft such films? Aparajito is a universal film that celebrates human compassion and strive. A simple story, just like Pather Panchali, told with utmost perfection and craftsmanship, I have no words to describe this chef d'oeuvre. I believe anyone who is associated with cinema, directly or remotely, should watch this film at least once in their lifetimes. It is a kind of movie that will always stay with you forever.

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8 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Haunting, moving, enduring, 13 May 2003
Author: jonr-3 from Kansas City, Missouri, USA

This is one of the few films that, ever since first viewing, have reverberated daily in my consciousness--and no doubt on a subconscious level as well.

If somebody wanted to acclaim "Aparajito" as the finest film ever made, I would not offer resistance, though of course that's a kind of meaningless claim to make. It's similar to calling Mozart the finest composer who ever lived--meaningless, yet somehow appropriate.

See "Aparajito" and find out if you don't agree. This film can change the way you look at life and human interaction--forever.

Only slightly weaker, in my opinion, is the first of the three films in this "Apu Trilogy," "Pather Panchali." "Pather Panchali" may be even stronger than "Aparajito" in that it repeatedly reaches heart-wrenching emotional peaks with the slightest of cinematic means. Both films are testimony to the great human heart of Satyajit Ray, surely one of the masterful geniuses of any day, in any medium.

I wish the third member of the trilogy, "The World of Apu," lived up to the standard of the first two. Unfortunately, it's flawed by an excess of sentimentality and melodrama. Still a fine film by ordinary standards, it does fail when measured against its two masterful predecessors. But that's often the way in multi-volume works.

All three films should be seen by anybody who considers film important as a means of human communication, or who cherishes learning about other cultures, or who simply feels in need of some affirmation of the occasional nobility of spirit and mysterious ways of the souls of ordinary human beings.

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8 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Aparajito: Possibly The Best of The Apu's Trilogy, 1 July 2002
Author: SUBRATA SANKAR BAGCHI (ssbagchi@hotmail.com) from India, Calcutta



Aparajito (The Unvanquished), second film in Apu's trilogy by Ray, is truly a masterpiece in the sense that it can still captivate any sensitive audience even after 56 years of its making and it can easily figure in any selected list of forever-classic films. The film unfolds a story of Harihar (Kanu Bannerjee), Sarbojoya (Karuna Bannerjee) and their child Apu (Pinaki Sengupta) living in the city of Banaras after leaving Nishchintapur (their ancestral village in Bengal) mainly due to the tragic death of their daughter Durga as shown in Pather Panchali, the first film of the Apu's trilogy. For earning, Harihar, who is a Brahmin reads the holy Hindu scriptures on the banks of holy Ganges to some Bengali widows who prefer to live in the holy city of Banaras after getting widowed. Sarbojoya is busy in her housework while Apu is spending most of his time by playing with his friends. But these moments of prosperity were cut short by the untimely death of Harihar after a brief illness. Sarbojoya was compelled to take the job of a cook in a wealthy Bengali family settled in Banaras. But to save her child from the inevitable slavery Sarbojoya left Banaras for Bengal to live in her uncle's house at Manasapota village. Apu started his study in the village school, fared very well and got a scholarship for the higher study in Calcutta. After much hesitation Sarbojoya gave his son (now played by Smaran Ghosal) the permission to pursue the higher study in Calcutta. Apu began his struggle in the city of Calcutta to pursue his study as well as earning money for the same and became busy in it. In the mean time Sarbojoya became seriously ill and died just before Apu's final examination. Apu comes back to the village only to retrieve his mother's belongings and then returned to the city again to appear for the examination with a promise to his grand-uncle to perform his mother's post-death rites (Shradhwa) in Calcutta. Aparajito or The Unvanquished is primarily a story of struggle between the tradition and progress first by Sarbojoya in Banaras and then by Apu. The film transcends its linear narrative style with Ray's majestic touches and excellent cinematography by Subrata Mitra. The way the film captured some fascinating glimpses of Banaras mainly through the eyes of Apu who plays and roams around the narrow and shabby lanes of Banaras, steep stairs on the banks of the river Ganges, old and squalid houses and sometimes in temples with the monkeys is truly beyond description. The depiction Harihar's death here with the groaning of Sarbojoya fit into the scene of suddenly dispersed pigeons on the banks of Ganges can fit among the best scenes of the Indian cinema. Some other unparalleled metaphors of the film include Apu's entry to the city of Calcutta with a geographic globe in his hand (meaning entry into the wider world), the English class in which the topic synecdoche is being taught and Apu falls asleep or in the last shot where Apu is heading for the city with his mother's last belongings and the sky is heavily overcast with the sounds of thunders indicating the Apu's severing of ties with the traditional occupation and journey to an uncertain and tumultuous world. The music by Ravi Shankar sublimed the whole film. Use of the Multani tune in flute of Pather Panchali to unravel the visualisation of the green landscape of Bengal in the shot when Sarbojoya and Apu are returning to Bengal is simply breathtaking.

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