Seeing the Indian Initiation Films through Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The Indian film industry represents the “Third World” with its abundant productions and widespread theatrical releases. The commercial films are said to be distinguished by songs and dances inserted unexpectedly, dark melodrama, copious exposition, and stupid comedies. Nonetheless, Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy of the 1950s is highly appreciated, even in the Western world, and twenty years after being burnt in a fire, it has recently been restored. Notably, three films, Pather Panchali, Aparajito, and Apur Sansar, are worthy of the historically significant milestone, meaning a typical Indian Bildungsroman or autobiographical style. This movie trilogy, which is in stark contrast to the recent initiation films of India, realistically belongs to the dramatic-transition style. With these considerations, this paper aims to apply the properties of the traditional Bildungsroman to the Apu Trilogy in its discussion of the Indian initiation films. Through this analysis, the properties of the trilogy prove to be in relative contrast to the other exemplary works of Ankhon Dekhi (2013) and Queen (2014): The speed and level of tension of the development of the story, the legitimacy and closeness of the relationship between family members, the roles of the supporting characters, the intelligibility of the turning points that result from the conflicts, and the necessity of the symbolic environment for the audiences’ understanding. Finally, this research suggests that the dramatic-transition style is more applicable to films from fiction, meaning the extension of the traditional Bildungsroman.

참고문헌 (Reference)

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