The Day Is Done, Take Me Across: The Satyajit Ray Thread

2021 is going to be the year that I finally watch some Ray.

PVR'd that (Enemy of the People) and The Stranger--it'll take me forever to catch up on the films I've been saving.

Surprised to find Pather Panchali and Aparajito have both just turned up on prime uk, free streaming

He is so good.

Anyone read his detective novels?

They are popular enough that you can find them in airports in India, or you could about five years ago? The volume of them is staggering – the two-volume edition of Feluda in English that Penguin put out is maybe 1500 pages. They're explicitly for children & very Sherlock Holmes-y but still still pleasant. What surprised me most about them is that there are almost no female characters in any of them? Maybe this was some sort of Bengali children's writing convention at the time?

Worth picking up if you can find a copy is this – not only was Ray doing his own graphic design and posters, he was also making his own typefaces, in Roman and Bengali.

Criterion has The Coward, a brief (69 minutes!) examination of thwarted desire. Shot with compassion and precision; he has an instinct for knowing how long to hold moments.

Apu Trilogy getting Criterioned

https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/1145-the-apu-trilogy

Weird. They got the Criterion treatment a few years ago. Our library has the set.

This is a 4K upgrade.

Yeah, I just realized my mistake.