By moving us slowly though Apu's life in the three movies, Ray shows us the world as it appeared coming out of a small rural Bengali village. In the first film, Apu's father ventured out of the village, but the cameras never did. In this film, Apu makes it to medium sized towns, and eventually to the Bengali Manhattan of Calcutta.

If you enjoyed these films, I would recommend looking up the 1960 film "A Cloud-Capped Star" by director R. Ghatak. For a look at an upscale Indian life that Apu would never see, Mira Nair's 2001 hit Monsoon Wedding is a nice antidote to Ray's brand of Dravidian misery (although I recommend watching it on DVD with the English subtitles on to ease understanding).

As to the DVD quality of Aparajito, its really no better than the VHS tapes readily available, although its nice to see that the film is at least getting some attention. Ray's "Days and Nights in the Forest" (1970) and "Distant Thunder" (1973) are also long overdue for restoration and re-release.

Sarbajaya's Struggle for Meaning (Rating: 5.00)
Review : This is the second film in director Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy and is best viewed after Pather Panchali and followed by The World of Apu. Harihar (Kanu Bannerjee) takes his wife, Sarbajaya (Karuna Bannerjee) and their son Apu to live in Benares. Their family home has been destroyed in the monsoon and with the loss of their daughter, they are struggling to cope emotionally as well as financially.

I found this movie to be more about the struggle Sarbajaya (Apu's mother) faces on a daily basis. She is an example of a woman who has given up her desires for the good of her family. As she cares for her family on a daily basis you can see how she is sinking into the darkest of depression. Not only is she terribly lonely, she does not fully recover from the loss of her daughter. While she is surrounded by members of her immediate community, she seems to strangely isolated and alone and the unfulfilled desires of her heart seem to weave an invisible and yet debilitating cocoon around her soul.

Throughout this movie, her sacrifice becomes even more beautiful as it allows Apu to see some of his own dreams come to fruition. Apu's father makes his living reading sacred texts by the shores of the Ganges River and then suddenly falls ill. Apu must continue his education and find his own way in this harsh world.

I love the scene where Apu pretends to miss the train and when his mother worries about what they are feeding him at school. The first few scenes also show birds sitting on umbrellas and then taking off suddenly. Could this be a foreshadowing for the situation in which Apu finally finds himself? I found these movies have quite a few "foreshadowing" moments that I only recognized on the second viewing. Which is why the Apu Trilogy must be watched more than once to be fully appreciated. These are finely woven stories that deal with the deepest human issues we all must face at some point in our lives.

~TheRebeccaReview.com

The middle film of Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy (Rating: 5.00)
Review : As with the first film in Apu trilogy, I once again find myself more interested in one of the women in the story than Apu himself, although the young boy (Pinaki Sengupta) has turned into an adolescent (Smaran Ghosal) and finally has something to do. In "Pather Panchali" it was Apu's sister Durga, while in "Aparajito" ("The Unvanquished") it is his mother, Sarbajaya (Karuna Bannerjee). After the tragic death of Durga and the destruction of the family's home, Harihar (Kanua Bannerjee) has taken his wife and son to live in the big city of Benares. Harihar makes a meager living reading sacred texts by the holy Ganges River and selling herbal remedies. But when he falls ill Sarbajaya has to learn to cope on her own and takes Apu to the country, where she works as the cook for a wealthy family. Meanwhile, Apu turns out to be an excellent scholar and does well in school. Eventually he goes away to the university in Calcutta. Sarbajaya does not want her son to go, but she cannot stop him and while she waits patiently for him to come home she get sick and grows weaker.

The climax of this film comes when Apu finally learns of his mother's illness and has to decide if he will stay for his final exams or return to her side and skip the exams. Based on the novel "Aparajito" by Bibhutibhushan Banerjee, at the heart of Satyajit Ray's film adaptation is the performance of Bannerjee as a woman who has lost everything in the world except a beloved son who is to busy to even bother to write her a letter (like father, like son, for those who have seen "Pather Panchali"). This film is not as powerful as it predecessor, but that is invariably true of all middle films in a movie trilogy, and the finale, "Apur Sansar" is a great climax. However, there is also the fact that Apu is not a particularly sympathetic figure. We appreciate that he is good at his studies, but that and life in the city consume him while his mother sits at home, getting weaker, and wondering when she will see him again.

Two of the pillars on which Ray's cinematic success is based is his cinematographer, Subrata Mitra, who had been a still photographer when Ray drafted him to film these movies, and the then unknown Ravi Shankar, whose music often takes the place of voices in these films. When they gave Ray his honorary Oscar in 1992, shortly before the director's death, they cited him: "For his rare mastery of the art of motion pictures and for his profound humanitarian outlook, which has had an indelible influence on filmmakers and audiences throughout the world." Individually and collectively, the Apu Trilogy certainly provides ample evidence in support of the claim.

Essential (Rating: 5.00)
Review : Good print quality; no DVD extras; the movie is outstanding.

Uplifiting and touching...A must see. (Rating: 5.00)
Review : Aparajito, or the Unvanquished, follows the life and transition of the child Apu, who is first introduced in Ray's film, Pather Panchali, to a responsible young man. This movie is about many things. About ambition and duty, about a mother's selfless love for her son, about growing up and new discoveries. We cannot but share in the wonder of the innocent and intelligent Apu, as a young man, when he comes to the big city Calcutta, from his home in the closed and remote village. Ray brings home the sad but unavoidable fact of life, that the little birds must leave their nest once they grow up to search for new horizons. Again the movie touches us all, for there is a Aparajito within us all, the undaunted soul which pushes us to strive for our dreams. This movie pays tribute to that undaunted Aparajito who is hidden somewhere within all of us.