Apur Panchali from "Pather Panchali" in its narrative. The film follows the journey of Subir Banerjee the child actor who portrayed "Apu" of Satyajit Ray's masterpiece "Pather Panchali". The events take place in two time periods. While the present day events are shot in color the past events are in black and white. Parallels are drawn between Subir's life and the Apu trilogy throughout the film. The film opens with a film school student Arka (Gaurav Chakrabarty) who comes to deliver a letter, an invite to attend a prestigious award ceremony in Germany to an older Subir Banerjee (Ardhendu Banerjee). Now retired,
Pather Panchali Pauline Kael wrote, "Beautiful, sometimes funny, and full of love, it brought a new vision of India to the screen". Basil Wright considered it "a new and incontrovertible work of art". James Berardinelli wrote in 1996 that the film "touches the souls and minds of viewers, transcending cultural and linguistic barriers". In 2006 Philip French of "The Observer" called it "one of the greatest pictures ever made". Twenty years after the release of "Pather Panchali", Akira Kurosawa summarised the effect of the film as overwhelming and lauded its ability "to stir up deep passions". The reaction was not uniformly positive.