The World of Apu

Starring:Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmila Tagore, Alok Chakravarty, Swapan Mukherjee, Dhiresh Majumdar, Sefalika Devi, Dhiren Ghosh, Abhijit Chatterjee, Shanti Bhattacherjee, Belarani Devi
Director: Satyajit Ray
Studio: Sony Pictures
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Amazon.com essential video
If you ever feel like you've got it tough, watch the Apu trilogy by Satyajit Ray. The World of Apu is the third story in Ray's magnum opus. And yes... things can get worse for our hero, Apu (Soumitra Chatterjee). By now it's the early 1930s, and Apu is a grown man. A dreamer and a writer like his long-dead father, Apu is working on a novel about his life.

When his best friend Pulu (Swapan Mukherjee) asks him to his sister's wedding, Apu has no idea that he'll be the one going home with the bride. Poor Aparna (Sharmila Tagore) is betrothed to an insane man and when his illness becomes apparent, the wedding is cancelled. But Aparna will be cursed unless another bridegroom is found. Apu, in a weak moment, agrees to marry Aparna in return for a job.

Then the unexpected happens. Aparna and Apu fall deeply in love. But will it last? Knowing Apu's luck in the past, the obvious answer is "no," and when Aparna dies in childbirth, Apu is left hating his son, Kajal. Finally, driven by guilt, Apu approaches his son, five years after the death of his beloved wife. Will they be able to salvage some happiness in an already too bleak life? You won't be disappointed in the outcome.

Product Description

The Apu trilogy is the most celebrated work of Satyajit Ray, the greatest filmmaker ever to have emerged from India cinema. The three films - each a masterpiece in its own right - are enormously touching in their simplicity, emotional sweep and visual beauty and established Ray in the pantheon of the world's finest directors. 'Pather Panchali', Ray's extraordinarily accomplished debut feature, begins the story of Apu, a young boy born into a poor but loving family in rural Bengal, and continues in 'Aparajito', when adolescence and his growing independence bring both joy and sorrow. 'The World of Apu', the final and most profoundly moving chapter in the trilogy, encompasses the extremes of joy and despair, ultimately reaching a conclusion that is among the most uplifting and life-affirming in cinema.

Average customer rating:

fantastic film!
The Indian Culture Will Sweep You Away!
The final experience!
Emotionally strong and eloquent movie
Profound conclusion as Apu becomes a man

The World of Apu
Starring: Soumitra Chatterjee , Sharmila Tagore , Alok Chakravarty , Swapan Mukherjee , and Dhiresh Majumdar
Director: Satyajit Ray
Manufacturer: Sony Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B0000CABBM
Release Date: 2003-10-28

Amazon.com essential video

If you ever feel like you've got it tough, watch the Apu trilogy by Satyajit Ray. The World of Apu is the third story in Ray's magnum opus. And yes... things can get worse for our hero, Apu (Soumitra Chatterjee). By now it's the early 1930s, and Apu is a grown man. A dreamer and a writer like his long-dead father, Apu is working on a novel about his life.

This last installment will leave you wishing Ray had made Apu IV. The music is by Ravi Shankar. --Luanne Brown

Description

In this final installment, Apu is forced to abandon his education. His future looks bleak until he marries an abandoned bride, beginning a new life as a husband and a father. Written and directed by award-winning filmmaker Satyajit Ray. Named 1960's Best Foreign Film by the National Board of Review.

Customer Reviews:

fantastic film!.......2007-03-22

THE WORLD OF APU is the third in the "Apu Trilogy," by the late, great Indian filmmaker, Satyajit Ray.
This film follows the title character, Apu, as a young, un-employed writer (Soumitra Chatterjee), who is searching for work, all the while aspiring to write his first novel. Pulu (Swapan Mukherjee), Apu's best friend from secondary school, has a beautiful young cousin, Aparna (Shamila Tagore), who is engaged to be married. Pulu invites Apu to attend the wedding, only to discover the day of the ceremony that the groom is a madman. Apu is asked to marry the bride, since the wedding day is auspicious and if she doesn't get married at the decided day and time, she is destined to have a life filled with bad luck and unhappiness. Though Apu has never even been in a relationship with a woman, he agrees to marry Aparna to do (as he says) "the honorable thing."

This film takes a look at Apu, his life's struggles and hard deck of cards that life has cast his way. I don't want to ruin the plot details, so I won't elaborate. I will say that the performances are beautiful and the story is wonderfully told. It is at once heartbreaking and inspiring. Highly reccomended......

The Indian Culture Will Sweep You Away!.......2006-12-15

Thanks to a pristine Indian audience, Satyrajit Ray (1921-92) created a trilogy where a ballet-like adagio becomes an art. In this, the 1959 epilogue of our hero Apu's coming of age, Apu is swept away by misfortune, and allows ethical decisions to be made for him. Perhaps paralleling the pacifist role India has played throughout her long life, Apu permits himself to become betrothed to a woman whose fiance is unfit for marriage. Apu steps in and accepts the challenge. Why not? He is at a standstill in his writing career and feels like a poverty-stricken failure with a beautiful face.

His new bride is not only sublimely gorgeous, with those big eyes the filmmaker Ray lovingly caresses, but she comes from incomparable wealth. Their arranged marriage becomes a temple of love, told tenderly with nary a touch between them. Echoing their temporary paradise the camera lingers on grassy landscapes of rural India, while Ravi Shankar's haunting sitar music flows in the background.

In the final scene, the couple's son, a 5-year-old, as playful, mischievous (he throws rocks) and inquisitive as his own father, rides Apu's shoulders in victory. Triumph shines over the appalling take-us-by surprise tragedies that pierce the film. The joyful moment of father and son striding confidently into the Big City reinforces the name and motif of the trilogy: The Unvanquished.

The final experience!.......2006-06-22

The last Opus of Satyajit Ray conforms together with the other two entries, a memorable and historical achievement in cinema `s story. Satyajit' s clever employment of the camera as a vehicle to express unsaid expressions, feelings and inner motivations is simply inimitable.

We are in front of one of the truest giants of this art, so mischievously used roughly in the actuality. Specially if we take into account the herald in what concerns to the expressive possibilities of the camera as an eye to scrutinize emotions or livings, was precisely, forgotten Titan, the unforgettable D.W. Griffith, one of filmmakers who influenced with major punch to Ray in his early youth.

After having lost his mother, Apu must undertake by himself, the demanded journey, he leaves his town and to make his dreams come true. But as we know, the life has by far a bigger imagination than us, and a apparently good action in order to avoid a familiar disgrace, he will open the great gate of the experience.

Plenty of poetic images, ravishing landscapes and a very touching script, Apu at last will understand what books can not offer; the experience by itself, and that will be a very rewarding living lesson.

If you really love the cinema, you should try to get this Trilogy, because these three films are included in any prestigious list of expert connoisseurs and specialized critics.

An authentic landmark.

Emotionally strong and eloquent movie.......2006-03-14

The third and final installment of Satyajit Ray's Apu trilogy, it's about a young idealistic man who learns about reality and responsibility. Apu is a writer living (and starving) in Calcutta. With a friend he attends a wedding, but when the bridegroom goes insane, the wedding is called off. Apu, thinking he's doing a noble deed, marries the girl. Things between them look dubious at first, but they grow to love each other very much. When she dies in childbirth he sinks into deep depression and spends five years wandering around India like a hermit. But he has a son and though he thinks of abandoning him, he comes home finally to raise him. It's a very touching and moving film, and in it's quiet way, very emotional. Soumitra Chatterji is wonderful as Apu, and Sharmila Tagore is openly expressive as his wife. Seeing Apu with his son on his shoulders at the end of the movie is powerfully uplifting. One of the great movies in world cinema.

Profound conclusion as Apu becomes a man .......2005-07-27

If you have gone this far as to view all three of the Apu trilogy, you may have gathered some insight into the work of internationally known director Satyajit Ray who died in 1992. Born into a family of intellectuals, he was passionate about film at a young age and inspired by the greatest of directors, including neorealism filmmaking of Vitorrio de Sica.

Ray explored human relationships from various angles; use of some non-actors, on-location, and use of little dialogue. Ray is said to have known what the face of his characters would look like before the actor/nonactor was hired. His trait was to scour for those memorable faces. Another aspect of Ray's is the varying themes encompassed in the nearly 40 films, documentaries and short stories. Themes dealt with life and death; traditional vs. modern values; villages vs city; tragedy, fantasy vs. reality, youth vs. aging; etc.

The World of Apu, (1959) named best foreign film of 1960 is the third of a trilogy, and focuses on Apu, now a man, writer, husband and father. If you have not seen the other two, do so before this one. "Pather Panchali" begins with his birth while "Aparajito" follows him through his education and further family hardships. Although the films were made in the mid-to-late 50s, the earliest depicts the mid 20s.

Apu is forced to abandon his education. By chance, he marries a beautiful woman, Aparna, who was cursed on her wedding day because her family would not allow her to marry her intended groom. He is either insane or with some retardation. Apu reluctantly marries her and falls deeply in love with her and she lives with him in his shabby existence.

She leaves for her homeland to give birth to a son and Apu is absent for the birth. She dies and for 5 years, he blames and rejects the child because of her death.

It is here that Apu makes a decision of live, to harbor feelings on the love he lost, or his desire or willingness to re-gain a son he blamed for Aparna's death.

To enjoy the depth of Apu's world, see the first two films of this trilogy, and if you embody foreign film by acclaimed filmmakers, you may feel the need to learn more about Satyajit Ray, because, sadly, the DVD has no commentary on the film. .....MzRizz

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