Aparajito

Aparajito (1956) is the second film in Satyajit Ray's Apu Trilogy, and you can watch it online on iFILM. After his father's death in the holy city of Benares, young Apu and his mother relocate to a Bengali village — but Apu's hunger for learning pulls him toward Kolkata's university, further from everything she knows.

The film follows a quiet collision between generations. His mother waits for letters that come less and less often. Apu is not cruel — he is simply becoming someone she cannot follow. Karuna Banerjee plays the mother with a restraint that makes certain scenes almost unbearable to watch. The child and teenage versions of Apu, played by Pinaki Sen Gupta and Smaran Ghosal respectively, carry the transition with real subtlety.

Cinematographer Subrata Mitra shot Aparajito on location with available light and close, patient framings that influenced Indian art cinema for decades. The film took the Golden Lion at the 1957 Venice Film Festival. Ray made education look like freedom and loss at the same time — and that tension is what gives Aparajito its staying power. Stream Aparajito (1956) online on iFILM.