--Akira Kurosawa
Films in India are largely known for their overly melodramatic content coupled with song and dance routines, but one filmmaker stood out from the usual Bollywood circus of noise and saturation. Satyajit Ray remains, to this day, one of the finest directors to have ever graced the world of motion pictures. His films speak of suffering, sadness, social issues, and the beauty of nature. Probably his best-known work among western audiences is the ‘Apu’ trilogy. The name ‘Apu’ may strike a chord of familiarity with Simpsons fans; after all the creators of that animated show borrowed the name from the film character.
The trilogy consists of ‘Song of the Little Road,’ ‘The Unvanquished,’ and ‘The World of Apu.’ All three movies depict the daily struggles of a poverty-stricken Brahmin family. In ‘Song of the Little Road’ we see Apu for the first time as an adolescent. We see Apu within the confines of childhood, where the harsh realities of adulthood are simply out of reach. Apu’s father is a priest who barely earns a living, and his mother is a simple housewife who takes care of the children. The two of them shield their children from a world that is bitter and cruel; they allow their son and daughter to blossom in their innocence.
Apu wanders and plays through the countryside with his sister, who takes care of him in an almost maternal way. They gaze at the world around them in wide-eyed wonder. They laugh, giggle, and play endlessly. And then one day, Apu’s sister suddenly dies from a fever. The family is overwhelmingly grief-stricken at the death, and the young Apu’s journey into the world has just begun.
After the death of his father, Apu desires to study in a school as he wants to gain more knowledge about the world around him. The mother wants him to stay, but she soon gives in and joins in his excitement; she sacrifices almost all of her savings so that Apu can go to the city to study and work. The distance between the mother and the son during this time makes the mother yearn more for her son. She treasures each and every one of his visits, though the visits are few; but she is thankful. Roger Ebert described this relationship in an essay:
“The relationship between Apu and his mother observes truths that must exist in all cultures: how the parent makes sacrifices for years, only to see the child turn aside and move thoughtlessly away into adulthood. The mother has gone to live with a relative, as little better than a servant ("they like my cooking"), and when Apu comes to visit during a school vacation, he sleeps or loses himself in his books, answering her with monosyllables. He seems in a hurry to leave, but has second thoughts at the train station, and returns for one more day. The way the film records his stay, his departure and his return says whatever can be said about lonely parents and heedless children.”
One day, Apu returns home only to find that his mother has passed away. He is heartbroken, but he decides to move on whilst cherishing the memories of his beloved mother.
In the third film ‘The World of Apu,’ a bizarre turn of events sees a much older Apu getting married. The message of the movie is particularly interesting when we consider that Satyajit Ray was a member of the Communist Party in India. Despite social ills being prevalent around the characters of the movie, Ray’s message seems to be of self-giving and the acceptance of responsibility rather than any sort of radicalism. Apu marries a supposedly ‘jinxed’ girl, not because he wants to settle down and start a family, and not even because he loves the girl, but rather because he thinks it is an only way to save the girl from social ostracism. Perhaps the absence of revolutionary zeal in Apu’s ‘solution’ was why many of Ray’s socialist comrades were so irked by the great auteur’s films.
Though initially sad and nervous, the girl, Aparna, grows quite fond of Apu once she gets to know him. A loving relationship begins to grow between them. But alas! Tragedy strikes again. It happens when Aparna gives birth to a son. She dies during childbirth, and for Apu it is the final nail in the coffin of what he once knew as life. He blames the death of his wife on his newborn son and runs away from the responsibility of fatherhood.
The further our souls stray from beauty, the more emptiness we are in. Life, from one perspective, is a series of endless tragedies. To make up for the emptiness, we develop a mindset of consumption and entitlement; ‘the more you consume and the more rights you enjoy, the happier you are.’ Such things, however, do not redeem the endless sorrows we encounter almost daily in our lives. In Ray’s films, we find the things that indeed redeem the suffering we go through. The love of Apu’s mother, for example, vividly illustrates a self-giving nature that is reminiscent of the Trinitarian dance. Later, we see this same self-giving when Apu sees Aparna on the brink of being excluded from society and decides to marry her.
The poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote:
“The one who plants trees, knowing that he will never sit in their shade, has at least started to understand the meaning of life.”
This way of self-giving not only redeems our suffering, but it connects our souls to the divine dance of heaven. It gives us a gateway to a state of existence that is above the natural. Isn’t that what beauty is supposed to be about? Beauty is that which connects us to the divine, and whenever we are confronted with that which is truly beautiful we are at a loss for words and find ourselves in awe. This is exactly what Apu experiences when, after running away from fatherhood, he witnesses the sun rising in the horizon and painting everything with a brilliant layer of light.
Having witnessed the power of creation, Apu returns to see his son. The son, now an adolescent, cannot recognize his father, but he is willing to accept Apu as a friend. Apu cheerfully picks up the boy and carries him on his shoulder, embracing fatherhood and its inevitable struggles, and continuing the journey of his own self-giving mother.
