Great Indian Movies - Apur Sansar. Review on Apur Sansar Movie

*This is a final installment of three-part review of Satyajit Ray’s widely acclaimed and universally applicable Apu Trilogy based on Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s classic Bengali novel - Pather Panchali, Aparajito, and Apur Sansar. Apu Trilogy demonstrates that regardless of ups and downs of the life, life will always go on. Every tragedy brings new hope and in same breath, every joy doesn’t last forever.

Satyajit Ray's Apur Sansar(1959) is complex study of aftermaths of love and loss in person's life. Its a story of Apu accidentally receiving unconditional love in form of soul mate later to loose her forever, longing for love, self-destruction, and later realizing happiness can exists in any form be it siblings, parents, spouse, or children as long as you as a person willing to accept it. It’s also a poignant tale of how Apu sees death throughout his life(grand mother, sister, mother, father, wife) and later overcomes his own enemies like alienation and loss in form of accepting his son.

*Story

*After his grandmother and sister's death in Pather Panchali and parent's death in Aparajito, Apu(now played by Soumitra Chatterjee) permanently settles down in Calcutta. After finishing his study, Apu is still unemployed and looking for work in literature field. Without employment, he is behind his rents and lives in small quarter on top floor of multi-storied building with terrace overlooking modern industrial Calcutta.

Since Apu doesn't do any activities, he reluctantly accepts his foreign return college buddy Pulu's(Swapan Mukherjee) invitation to join Pulu's distant cousin Aparana's wedding in village situated in countryside away from daily hustle bustle of Calcutta. During marriage ceremony, things get topsy-turvy when bride's family find out that groom is having mental problems. Since superstitious villagers thinks its kind of bad omen for dressed up bride if wedding doesn’t take place at the appointed hour, Pulu asks Apu to accept bride as his wife. After initial reluctance, Apu gets married to Aparana(Sharmila Tagore) and both newly-weds returns back to the small tiny room of Calcutta.

After initial uneasiness and strangeness, both Apu and Aparana start exploring each other in early part of their post-wedding life. Slowly and slowly the trust, the belief, the love prospers and it makes them one of the most talked, beloved, and enchanting couple in neighborhood. In the mean time, Apu gets a job as a clerk. As happens in most of all Indian families, good news comes in early part of their post-marriage life and Aparna returns back to her village for pregnancy period.

Once Apu and Aparana separates themselves because of century old Indian traditions of woman returning back to her biological family during pregnancy period, they’re feeling longing for each other's companionship and that forced them to write letters to each other. As both strengthens their love, bonding, and marital life with invaluable love letters, tragedy strikes, and Apu gets bad news that Aparana passed away during birth of their son. Shell-shocked Apu couldn't take his beloved wife's death news and refused to accept his son as his blood. After seeing so many deaths throughout his life especially his mother and now his most personal loss, he became wanderer and started living nomadic life all over India.

When Pulu visits Aparana's house and sees Apu's grown up 4-year-old son Kajal(Alok Chakravarty) and seeing Aparana's widowed father's hatred towards Apu, Pulu accepts responsibility for searching of Apu. At last, he finds Apu living nomadic life in central India and advices him to accept his son. Apu decides to see his son and later learns that his son longing for his father as much Apu himself longing for his Aparana and he realizes that he has to be responsible for his son so he doesn't grow up without his father.

*Analysis

*Apur Sansar is arguably most complex film of Apu Trilogy. While Pather Panchali was all about why people migrate and Aparajito was all about why birds are flying away, Apur Sansar depicts human conditions like love, loss, longing, redemption, and person’s hatred towards world.

Watching Apur Sansar strengthens my belief in century old Asian traditions of arranged marriages or accidental marriages. Apu and Sharmila’s moving romantic scenes after their marriage is one of the best periods of this film. The way Ray portrayed they initially didn’t know each other, started exploring each other in early part of their marriage life, the trust, the innocent communication, and the way they wrote their letters knowing every single thing about their past and their hobbies is part of majority of Indian Marriages. Just watch out for the scene when Sharmila puts little notes in Apu's cigarette box reminding him only to have one after every meal, simple example of how much they love and care for each other.

To me, one of the best scenes of Apu Trilogy comes in Apur Sansar when Apu receives last letter from Sharmila and the way Apu was reading his wife’s letter from work to railway coaches to railway tracks and he comes home and boom - gets worse ever news of Sharmila's death during child birth process and he cries out loud. That was cry of human emotions - moment ago at the peak of the love and moment after at the abyss of the loss. As a viewer, you can actually feel Apu’s heartbreak while watching those scenes and makes you think that only Ray can do that.

Perhaps one of the most intriguing parts of this film is Sharmila Tagore. She was just 14 when she played Aparana’s role. The way she rendered innocence, bride’s fear, and unconditional love with her big eyes in post-wedding scenes leaves everlasting impact on viewer’s mind even though she is not present in later part of the movie. Her acting as Aparna was making of her future legacy as great Indian actress. Soumitra Chatterjee renders complex role of heart-wrenching Apu with utmost ease. His cunning eyes during flirting with new bride or tragic face during his alienation of world are prime example of acting prowess of this great Bengali actor.

Conclusion

Since each movie in Apu Trilogy can stand on its own, different people have different opinion about their personal favorites among three. Some love Pather Panchali for its simplistic yet nostalgic appeal, some love Aparajito for universal yet poignant mother-child relationships, and some love Apur Sansar for person's longing for love and loss. Even though I love all three and personally think all three are great movies at their own merits with universal themes, my personal favorites would be Pather Panchali for its brilliant nostalgic simplicity and lyrical innocence. At the same time, I am not taking away anything from Apur Sansar. It’s one of the best gifts given to the world by Bengali cinema and fitting culmination to the haunting Apu Trilogy.