Countries & Movies: India
The best film of Indian cinema, according to the version of FilmGourmand, is the 1957 Satyajit Ray's film "Ôporajito অপরাজিত) (The Unvanquished)".
The film "The Unvanquished" is the second part of the so-called trilogy of Apu, which includes "Pather Panchali ডিভিডি কাভার (Song of the road)" (part 1) and "Apur Sansar অপুর সংসার (The world of Apu)" (part 3). In general, the whole trilogy, according to film critics, is the pinnacle of Indian cinema.
So, Roger Ebert, who rated the entire trilogy with four out of 4 possible stars and included all 3 films in his list of “Great Movies” wrote: "The three films, which were made in India by Satyajit Ray between 1950 and 1959, swept the top prizes at Cannes, Venice and London, and created a new cinema for India--whose prolific film industry had traditionally stayed within the narrow confines of swashbuckling musical romances..... I watched "The Apu Trilogy" recently over a period of three nights, and found my thoughts returning to it during the days. It is about a time, place and culture far removed from our own, and yet it connects directly and deeply with our human feelings. It is like a prayer, affirming that this is what the cinema can be, no matter how far in our cynicism we may stray."
If Ebert devoted his review to film trilogy as a whole, then another famous American film critic James Berardinelli wrote in his review devoted directly to the second part of the trilogy: "Aparajito is an amazing motion picture. Its rich, poetic composition is perfectly wed to the sublime emotional resonance of the narrative. For those who have seen Pather Panchali, Aparajito provides a nearly-flawless continuation of the journey begun there. Yet, for those who missed Ray's earlier effort, this film loses none of its impact. On its own or as part of the Apu Trilogy, Aparajito should not be missed."
And even the usually picky movie reviewer of The New York Times, Bosley Crowther noted as a positive feature of "The Unvanquished": "the format and content of this film are remote from and very much in contrast to what we generally get from Hollywood."
The total viewer rating of the second part of the trilogy is slightly lower than the ratings received by the first part, "Song of the road", and the third part, "the world of APU". But due to the greater number of significant prizes received at European film festivals, the second part of the final rating slightly ahead of the rest of the trilogy. But even being a little lower, the audience rating of this creation of Satyajit Ray is extremely high: 75% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users around the world gave the film a score of 8 or higher.
Some decrease in the audience rating of the second part has its explanation. Satyajit Ray included some details of his personal biography, particularly his relationship with his mother, in the screenplay of "The Unvanquished", based on the novel by Bengali literature classic Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. But the Indian moviegoer was initially somewhat prejudiced by the portrayal of a son-to-mother relationship different from traditional worship. But such relations were more understandable to the Western audience.
According to FilmGourmand, the movie "The Unvanquished" has a rating of 9.328 and takes 93rd Rank in the Golden Thousand.
In addition to "The Unvanquished", Indian cinema is represented in the FilmGourmand's Golden Thousand with 32 more films. This list can be found here. We will write about all films from this list later.
