Balu Mahendra to the script". As a film-maker, he claimed himself as belonging to the realistic way of story-telling devised by Satyajit Ray and Vittorio De Sica. Mahendra was drawn towards realistic cinema after watching Ray's "Pather Panchali" (1955). He is credited as being one among the earliest filmmakers to bring "naturalism" in Tamil cinema in the 1970s. He usually photographed, scripted and edited all his films. His films were characterised by strong "visual appeal" and minimal number of characters. A majority of his films centre on the complexity of human relationships and are known to portray women as strong characters. Although
Pather Panchali shot on location with an amateur cast. The international success of Akira Kurosawa's "Rashomon" (1950) and Bimal Roy's 1953 film "Do Bigha Zamin" (which was shot partly on location and was about a peasant family) led Ray to believe that "Pather Panchali" would find an international audience. Ray also had more indigenous influences, such as Bengali literature and the native Indian theatrical tradition, particularly the "rasa" theory of classical Sanskrit drama. Darius Cooper describes the complicated doctrine of "rasa" as " predominantly on feelings experienced not only by the characters but also conveyed in a certain artistic way to the