Wolff rating: EXCELLENT
Plot summary: Young man in Calcutta struggles with poverty and disaster, with interludes of joy.
Biased, pithy comments: The third in the Apu trillogy (started with Pather Panchali, truly a must-see), this is a more mature work. The characters begin to have a stronger personality and a shimmering vibrance, away from the solemn, slow-moving pastoral parts of the first two films. Rich, utterly human, and beautifully filmed. You should see all of these movies and watch as Ray patiently details everything with such few strokes---scenes are shown without dialogue say easily as much as rapid-fire Tarantino scripts.
How many times I have seen it: x1
Starring: Soumitra Chatterjee, Sharmilia Tagore, Alok Chakravarty, Swapan Mukherjee.
Directed by: Satyajit Ray