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(aka 'Pather Panchali' or 'The Lament of the Path' or 'The Saga of the Road' or 'Song of the Road')

directed by Satyajit Ray
India 1955

Considered Calcutta-born director Satyajit Ray's masterpiece, "Pather Panchali" is the first film of his Apu Trilogy (Pather Panchali, Aparajito and Apur Sansar) documenting the life and maturation of one young Indian boy. With themes rooted with universal appeal and understanding we see the pain and tragedy, familial spirit and hands on tutelage of one expressively insignificant individual in our world. Photographic realism so acute you can almost smell the rain soaked Bengali grass as the raga's of Ravi Shankar play in perfect balance with cultural coherence echoing in the distance. A poignant diversion from Bollywood with its poetic intimacy and confident composure. Brilliant, intense, transcendent; cinema made with pure, honest love. out of

Gary W. Tooze

Theatrical Release: August 26th, 1955

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DVD Comparison:

Artificial Eye - Region 2 - PAL vs. Columbia Tri-Star - Region 1 - NTSC

All Screen caps courtesy of Kevin Yip

(Artificial Eye - Region 2 - PAL - LEFT vs. Columbia Tri-Star - Region 1 - NTSC - RIGHT)

DVD Box Covers
Distribution	Artificial Eye Entertainment Region 2 - PAL	Columbia Tri-Star Region 1 - NTSC
Runtime	1:59:32 (4% PAL speedup)	2:06:00
Video	1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 5.16 mb/s PAL 720x576 25.00 f/s	1.33:1 Original Aspect Ratio Average Bitrate: 4.38 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate: AE
Bitrate: Columbia
Audio	Bengali (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)	Bengali (Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono)
Subtitles	English, and none	English (non-removable)
Features	Release Information: Artificial Eye Entertainment Aspect Ratio: Original aspect Ratio 1.33:1 Special features: * 11-minute excerpt of BBC documentary "The Cinema Satyajit Ray", in English without subtitles or closed captioning * A few storyboards, including those of deleted scenes * A few production photos, production and biographical notes DVD Release Date: February 10th, 2003 Keep Case Chapters 22 NOTE: 3-film set (Apu Trilogy), each film not sold separately	Release Information: Studio: Columbia Tri-star Home Video Aspect Ratio: Original aspect Ratio 1.33:1 DVD Release Date: October 28, 2003 Keep Case Chapters: 12

Comments:

The Columbia Region-1 DVD version was based the 1994 restoration effort by Merchant-Ivory Production. Unfortunately, the disc was apparently transferred from a low-definition print, and the result looks to be of laserdisc quality and not good enough for DVD.

The Region-2 PAL DVD from UK's Artificial Eye looks much sharper, apparently because a high-def print was used. The print also went through considerable cleanup, eliminating a lot (but not all) of the speckles, scratches, and other blemishes that are seen on the R1 disc. There are also fewer instances where the frame becomes unsteady and jerky.

On the screenshots below showing children running through a doorway, the R1 disc also exhibits the "ghosting" effect, indicating a non-progressive source was used for the transfer. The R2 disc has no such artifacts.

The R2 disc has removable, re-translated subtitles, but I've noticed quite a few un-translated dialogs. In the scene where the children go to see a roadside performance, the dialogs in the performance are not fully subtitled on the R2 disc, whereas on the R1 disc they are. The R1 disc has white, non-removable subtitles.

The audio on the R2 disc is sharper and has better dynamic range, but more hisses and static.

The R1 disc runs 126 minutes total, including 90 seconds of credits for the Merchant-Ivory restoration; thus the film itself runs 124 minutes. The R2 disc is time-coded to be 120 minutes long, even though the packaging states 125 minutes.

Kevin Yip

DVD Menus

(Artificial Eye - Region 2 - PAL - LEFT vs. Columbia Tri-Star - Region 1 - NTSC - RIGHT)

SUBTITLE COMPARISON