Pather Panchali. Satyajit Ray. 1955. ⚄
There aren’t a lot of movies on this list from outside the US/Europe/Japan/Hong Kong axis. Is this the only one? Haven’t made a survey, but it kinda looks like it? Uhm… Oh! It’s got Close-Up by Abbas Kiarostami, too. (From Iran.) That one’s really good. My guess is that the next survey (scheduled for 2022, if the world hasn’t ended by then) will include a lot more, like, for instance, Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives.
This is Indian, by the way, and is in Bengali.
I am not a conne… conos… connersue… I don’t know much from Indian movies. I watched a bunch of them last year for my Netflix blog series, and… I guess they weren’t any worse than the American movies, really? I mean, not much.
This is not a Netflix movie. (Note: Insightful comment.)
I really like this. I mean, on a scene by scene basis: I really love the pacing; it’s languorous and slippery, and every scene of picaresque poverty is exquisitely framed. The actors are great; not exactly naturalistic, but every look speaks volumes. It’s not that far from contemporaneous Italian cinema, I guess?
But…
I have to admit growing distracted after an hour or so. There’s some excellent, heartbreaking scenes here, but there’s a bit too much time spent on stuff that is less interesting than the movie assumes it would be. There’s like no… tension? In those scenes?
It is a lovely movie, though. I laughed, I cried.
The scenes with the cats feel quite 2020, I’m sure.
This leftover recipe (Bikini Martini) depletes both my stock of Peachtree and blue curacao, but not by much.
It’s OK? But it’s very alcohol-forward. After diluting it a bit more, it’s nicer.
This blog post is part of the Officially The Best series.