Watched the movie Apu-r Panchali yesterday, with no credit taken away from all the crew who were involved in the making of this film, I would specially like to mention the work of the cinematographer Sirsha. We have often discussed that the quality of a film relies so heavily on a combination of elements like a very matured script, dramatics, subtlety, shot plans, tones, light, angles, acting, music, editing, grading and so on. Satyajit Ray heavily depended on symbolic expression of human emotions in his films and for that the only person he could depend on was Subrata Mitra, the legendary cinematographer. Yesterday I felt, Ray would have been very happy seeing Sirshas work. Making this film was not easy as only good acting and good script and good music wouldnt have made this a great film. The way Sirsha made compositional selections to represent various characters, the subtle tones he used to express some very sombre moments, tremendous camera control even while short pans have left me mesmerized. I have not seen many cinematographers who have expressed so well in a minimalistic way. I can not forget one shot taken from the top in the rain and I think it is unique. Every film director in the world would have jumped seeing that perspective and the tone as well. The last shot of the film was my personal favorite. This is a classical example where the success of the film relied so heavily on photography. I have always believed in Sirshas aesthetic sense and now my demands from him will be even more. Rarely does one get to see a photographer with such fine balance of technical brilliance, aesthetic sense as well as sensitivity which helps to bring the characters to life. For me, his work has been at par with the top international cinematographers. No matter how good one works, there are always scopes for improvement, hence not getting into forcefully criticize him. If he continues to work like this, undoubtedly he would be the most remembered cinematographer from Bengal.
Posted on: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 05:53:41 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015