Best movie of this year hands down!

Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Just perfect...

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

First of all accolade for Kaushik Ganguly for creating this masterpiece. A life story told/depicted in such a brilliant manner; such that it has turned out to be an unforgettable cinematic experience...a milestone in not only Bengali cinema but in world cinema as a whole. Watching 'Apur Panchali' is like regressing back to the world of Satyajit Ray...reliving those characters, those moments after almost 60 years. Now that's quite a magical experience indeed! I have watched many a movies of Kaushik Ganguly and he is no doubt a fantastic director. But with 'Apur Panchali' he has made his mark as one of the greatest. He definitely deserves the Silver Peacock award! Everything been sublime with Apur Panchali..say it the direction, the casting, the casts' performance and most remarkably that (recreated) background score..its simply fantabulous! Over all, a never to miss, a perfect once in a lifetime creation that you would like to cherish in your heart for ages just like Ray's Apu Trilogy. Moviewise 9 and +1 for Kaushik Ganguly....for gifting us this wonderful piece of cinema after a long long time

Let me start off by saying that I don't remember much of the Apu trilogy, because I was at an age where Arnie in 'Predator' or 'Commando' made a bigger impression on me than someone depicting the vagaries of Indian life, that too in the stilted framing of yesteryear, that too in monochrome.When I heard that this one was playing in town, and that it showed the life of one of the more largely ignored child actors of all time, I was interested in seeing that aspect of life, because, let's face it, I am at an age now where I understand how it is to be ignored, to be neglected, and yet plod on with life like a (for lack of a better simile) zombie does.This movie is framed very interestingly, with 3 narratives criss-crossing simultaneously. 1, the near-present, where a FTI student takes the old man through the motions of traveling to Germany to be felicitated for being 'Apu'. 2, that part of the ignored, frustrating life this old man had, after tasting near-success with his childhood acting stint, where he;s trying to go through the motions of being a dutiful householder. 3, and perhaps the most intriguing choice of all, since it (IMO) does not serve the main narratives much except as a curio/diversion, portions from the Apu trilogy that mirror this householder's life, where we're supposed to understand that he's living through his painful present, whilst re-living their memories from the shoot.The technical aspects are great, with the footage and the flashback framed in monochrome, and the near-present portions filmed in color. The score is sparse, yet magnificent, rivaling the other masterpiece of scoring this year, from the Indian Indie diaspora - Aankhon Dekhi.I now have a crush on Parno, and for me, all her interactions with Parambrata, though few and sparse (that word again), clichéd, yet supremely sweet, always put a smile on my face. Contrast this with the darkness that pervades the protagonist's life, and you have quite a few sweet memories to cherish, like he does all through.I thought the director's grasp on his craft was found wanting with a few in-your- face/unsubtle choices he made initially, but though they do remain as fact, he more than makes up for it by staying on-target, and delivers a simple peep into the not- so-special life of another Indian living in obscurity. Pity they didn't get the real Subir to enact it all, and a testimony to the actor/s who did, making us forget that this is a movie, not a slice-of-life.Not to be missed at the local multiplex.

First I want to praise Koushik Ganguly for his effort of bringing Apu again in the world of movies. We all know Apu as a character in Satyajit Ray's "Pather Panchali". But in the movie we can see that Apu is not only a character, he is a boy, a boy we can find in every corner of our villages who grew up among the paddy fields and struggle in their lives when they lose their close ones. Mr. Ganguly also focused on the life of a famous child actor who was once famous but with time gets forgotten and with that the effect of that past fame in his life. But here Subir Banerjee's(the actor who played Apu in "Pather Panchali") life is compared with the life of Satyjit Ray's Apu by showing few clips of "Pather Panchali" and "Apur Sansar" in the movie. Mr. Ganguly brilliantly compared their lives and surprisingly their lives were same in multiple aspects. And also hats off to the actors specially Parambrata Banerjee who played the role of young Subir Banerjee. Of all the scenes in the movie I liked the scene when Subir mistakenly enters in the film set of a movie when he saw a child actor acting in the movie. The fact that he still misses the famous child actor in himself was brilliantly represented. Also I like to mention the scene where he hears the news of his wife's suicide in his Boss' telephone. But i felt that the representation of present day Subir Banerjee was not that good(considering the overall quality of the film). And the transition between the scenes of this film and "Pather Panchali" could have been done in a slight better way. In the end I want to congratulate Koushik Ganguly for successfully making a film based on a new and interesting concept in a brilliant way and setting a milestone in the world of movies(specially Bengali movies).

The beautification of this movie has increased by showing three different but related stories simultaneously and I am pretty sure it was a very tough job to edit a movie like this. As the name reveals, the story is about the forgotten hero of Pather Panchali's "Apu" whose real life name is Subir Banerjee. It shows how a movie changed his life and the uncanny similarity between Apu and Subir Banerjee.All actors of this movie did awesome job, it is hard to compare them, Ardhendu, Param, Parno, all of them were superb. But the most beautiful part was the story telling process, kudos to Kaushik Ganguly for such a movie and personally I feel this movie should be considered as a landmark in bengali movie history.