It is the story of Apu, who is allowed to teach formal, but there are some of his mother's pleasant objections. It seems that his mother wanted to be a priest, and after the death of his father, Apu leaves his home to study in Calcutta. Things may turn out during this period as his mother must face a new life where she lives alone.
It doesn't have quite the tension or quite the variety of mood but it has a special brooding quality and a more explicit conflict between East and West.
It is done with such rare feeling and skill at pictorial imagery, and with such sympathetic understanding of Indian character on the part of Mr. Ray, that it develops a sort of hypnotism for the serene and tolerant viewer.
San Francisco Chronicle
January 01, 2000
There's pleasure in witnessing Apu's thrill of knowledge, but sadness when his ambitions create an inevitable break with his mother.