Ray was a realistic romanticist: Adoor

KOLKATA: Sixty-four years ago Adoor Gopalakrishnan had watched a film, the language of which he did not understand, but it left an indelible impression on him especially the image of a wrinkled face of an elderly woman singing a lullaby to a child.

That movie that did not have any subtitle was Satyajit Ray's 'Pather Panchali' (Song of a Road) and none of the films I had seen before was like this one, the director said, recollecting his first impression after watching the Bengali classic in 1958. What struck him most in Ray's immortal 'Pather Panchali' was that none of the artistes used any make-up, Gopalakrishnan said at a programme here on Monday. My professor had told me there is a 16-mm film made by a student from Santiniketan, which has got international recognition. I could not follow the language, in those days there was no subtitle, but I saw an old woman whose face had shrunken with age. I could hear a lullaby. Though the nuances of dialogue were lost, none of the films seen before by me was like 'Pather Panchali', he said. Adoor was speaking at a function on the 101st birth anniversary of the maestro organised by Satyajit Ray Janmo Satobarsho Committee' (birth Centenary committee) at

Kalamandir auditorium here. "Later when I became a student of cinema, I saw 'Pather Panchali' several times," he

said reminiscing about Satyajit Ray, whom he labelled as the tallest, highest and greatest filmmaker of our times . Ray made his directorial debut in 1955 with 'Pather Panchali', an adaptation of a portion of Bibhuti Bhushan Bandopadhyay's novel of the same name, which eventually won many awards.

The film revolves around the lives of Harihar, his wife Sarbajaya, and their children Durga and Apu. Harihar's elderly cousin Indir Thakuran also lives with the family and is very close to Durga.Ray had motivated Chunibala Devi who was in her late seventies then to come out of retirement to play the role of Indir Thakuran. Chunibala Devi had won an award for best actress at the Manila Film Festival,Asserting that the auteur was a realist at heart, Adoor said, "Ray is for me a realistic romanticist. Very often he is referred to as a neo-realist director to which I don't agree."