fantastic film!
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!
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!
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

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
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