'Pather Panchali' still young at sixty

KOLKATA: At a time when regional films are facing tough competition from big budget Bollywood films, Satyajit Ray's 'Pather Panchali' completed 60 years with the world still celebrating its making.
Ray's classic re-defined Indian filmmaking ��� this was the refrain heard at a panel discussion on Sunday that saw speakers like Sharmila Tagore, Aparna Sen, Dileep Padgaonkar, Dibakar Banerjee, Nandita Das, Shoojit Sircar, Sujoy Ghosh and Suman Mukhopadhyay talk on 'Indian Cinema: What is National, What is Regional'.The discussion at Kala Mandir was organized by Society for the Preservation of Satyajit Ray Archives.
Speakers debated if Hindi films can be called national while vernacular ones are called regional. "Films like 'Pather Panchali' transcend the barriers of language and borders and move on to become cult that the whole world uses as a reference point," said Sharmila Tagore. She recounted how she took time off from shooting 'Aradhana' to make time for Ray's 'Apur Sansar'.
Aparna Sen felt that the uniqueness of the film lay in the fact that although it was rooted in Bengal, that did not get in the way of its universal appeal. But for Padgaonkar, who read much about the film before he actually watched it, 'Pather Panchali' represents a watershed. "In Indian cinema, you have a pre-'Pather Panchali' and a post-'Pather Panchali' period. Ray stood out with his new cinematic language that was devoid of theatrics and used minimal dialogues, stunning his audience with its poignancy," Padgaonkar said.
The discussion ended with speakers agreeing that when a film like 'Pather Panchali', which went on to become a human document, is made, all divides dissolve.