400 Blows and Pather Panchali. I've watched both films, they are memorable and brilliant - both telling stories in different ways while being breakthrough in their form and structure. Truffaut's first feature film defined the French New Wave movement. Ray's first film, Pather Panchali (Song of the Road) won eleven international awards including 'Best Human Document' at Cannes.
Truffaut and Ray, Ray and Truffaut. Overlapping lifetimes, parallel perspectives. Ray acknowledged the influences of Jean Renoir and Italian neorealism. Truffaut was a film critic until he decided to take a hand at it himself.
Both films are in black & white. Both feature small boys as their protagonists. Antoine Doinel and Apu. Both films turned out to be the first in the series of three or more sequels. The sequels follow the boys, Antoine and Apu as they grow older - experiencing love, loss, life. Both are bleak in parts and end with hints of a certain kind of hope.
Pure cinema, with curious parallels.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
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