Pather Panchali

The train coming. Black smoke from its boiler. Heading down the track. While plants face the audience in an overhead view of  India. This is Pather Panchali. Pather Panchali is set in a poverty-fueled village in 1930s India. It is about a boy named Apu, who while living in Poverty starts by enjoying the small things in life. 

In Pather Panchali, Apu experiences what life is actually like; not violently depressing but more emotionally depressing. For example, Durga’s death is just how life and nature works. It doesn't act depressing, it's just part of life’s circle. The small pleasures of life include many  aspects of nature such as fruit, plants, and animals. 

In Pather Panchali, nature plays a significant part in the story because the outdoors are mentioned constantly throughout the dialogue, the background sounds use a variety of sounds from nature, and the visuals in the film emphasize nature. 

In Pather Panchali, the background sounds use a variety of sounds from nature. For example, after the opening credits, the film opens with the sounds of birds chirping. A movie's opening goal is to establish elements of the story, and so birds chirping helps establish that the film will have components of nature and displays why nature is a prominent part of the movie.

In Pather Panchali, nature is mentioned constantly throughout the dialogue. First, at 2:43 seconds into the film, we see two women talking about a girl who stole the fruit, one of nature's resources. We then see characters talking more about the fruit thief at 5:16-6:23. 

In Pather Panchali, the visual shots in the film emphasize nature. The train scene displays the contrast between technology and nature. The train scene puts plants in front of the camera, portraying the outdoors as a focus in the shot. We also see during the rain scene how nature acts as a shower and joyful experience in poverty. The last shot in the film is a snake slithering around. Snakes represent how nature takes back a place people habitat from the humans. Apu leaving also represents how all must fall at the end.

In conclusion, in Pather Panchali, nature plays an influential aspect in the story because the outdoors are mentioned continuously throughout the dialogue, the background sounds use a variety of sounds from nature, and the visuals in the film emphasize nature.

So I saw Pather Panchali, and it was pretty cute. This film follows the lives of an Indian family living in poverty but manages to make the best of their lives. And that's about it. It's a very primary story, but the actual character interactions, curiosity, and cinematography make the film what it is. The film doesn't take itself too seriously. The film acts like a series of short films rather than a movie itself. The short film style benefits the film yet hurts it too. It helps the film as it turns your brain off, which causes it to be cute, but it hurts the movie as it wastes the runtime and makes the pacing slow. Pacing in films can be slow, but not during the whole movie. The pacing in films can slow down for emotional scenes but not for anything else, yet the short film style is the reason for this

The cinematography in this film is breathtaking. I don't have much to say about the cinematography because it is so good. I can't analyze the acting because it was in a different language, so the line delivery becomes impossible to evaluate. Another thing I noticed was the scene where Apu wakes up reminded me of a Sam Rami horror moment that he used in Evil Dead and Doctor Strange, so it was nice to see how the film has inspired future directors. It was also a tiny bit frightening.

In conclusion, Pather Panchali is very cute, has spectacular cinematography, but has slow pacing and an overlong runtime.

You are correct in describing the film as episodic, but you don’t ask where the episodes lead, or what it might add up to, and as a result, your review doesn’t capture even a tiny fraction of the meaning of the film.  Which that it is not an analysis at all.