The picture above was posted to the Criterion Collection Facebook page with the caption “A 35mm negative gets the white glove treatment in Italy,” and as many of the commenters have already noted, the film that’s getting the delicate treatment is Satyajit Ray‘s Pather Panchali (1955), the first film in Ray’s “Apu Trilogy” along with Aparajito (1956) and Apur Sansar (1959). The trilogy is considered by many to be one of the best of all-time and Roger Ebert included the collective trilogy as one of his “Great Movies” entries opening his review with:
The great, sad, gentle sweep of “The Apu Trilogy” remains in the mind of the moviegoer as a promise of what film can be. Standing above fashion, it creates a world so convincing that it becomes, for a time, another life we might have lived. 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. Never before had one man had such a decisive impact on the films of his culture.
The trilogy is available on DVD, but the idea Criterion will be giving it a proper Blu-ray treatment is something film fans the world ’round will certainly be excited about… However, we must wait for confirmation. Will confirmation come next Tuesday? Is it possible the trilogy will be announced for October 2014?
We’ll wait and see, but as someone that has never seen it, I would love to make the first time with a Criterion restoration.
Meanwhile, Snowpiercer director Joon-ho Bong visited the Criterion closet and his attention was drawn to films from Roman Polanski, Guillermo del Toro, Yasujiro Ozu and a story about loaning Chan-wook Park (Oldboy) his copy of Haskell Wexler‘s Medium Cool, which Park never returned.
Check out the video below, and remember you can still take advantage of the here.
