Shweta Basu Prasad’s Digital Playlist | Two: A Film Fable by Satyajit Ray

Shweta Basu Prasad’s Digital Playlist: Two: A Film Fable by Satyajit Ray is a 12 minute dialogue-less masterpiece is about a boy from an upper class family who is left alone at home (we see a car leaving the boy and the big house alone) where the boy is seeing toying around with his expensive toys to kill time.

Short films are not a recent phenomenon. They have been around forever. The first film ever made in the world in fact was a short film (the arrival of the train). However it has gained immense popularity and accessibility lately thanks to the evolution in technology and different platforms.

When I was scouting a film for this week’s recommendation for the column I came across one such classic short film by master filmmaker Satyajit Ray, Two: A Film Fable available on YouTube, restored by the Academy film archives.

This 1964 12 minute dialogue-less masterpiece is about a boy from an upper class family who is left alone at home (we see a car leaving the boy and the big house alone) where the boy is seeing toying around with his expensive toys to kill time. He also lights match box kept next to exhausted cigarettes. He then hears a sweet melody of flute coming from outside his house. He peeps outside his window to understand that the music is produced by a street kid, almost his age from the slum area that his house is overlooking. The rest of the film is the rivalry between the prince and the pauper showing off their toys and the beauty of simplicity.

Watch | Two: A Film Fable by Satyajit Ray here:

Just like Satyajit Ray’s other short film Pikoo (also available on YouTube), this short film too understands the child psychology and can be observed as a child character study. Every frame tells a story. Carefully placed cigarettes to windows with vertical bars and so many more elements that gives the audience liberty to interpret the film.

Films like Two, Pikoo, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne and Apu trilogy prove the curiosity and ease Ray worked with around children. Academy film archive, part of the Academy Foundation, took an initiative to restore Satyajit Ray’s films and could successfully restore 19 Ray films. Two was preserved in 2006. The film’s original script was included in a book named Original English Film Scripts Satyajit Ray, put together by Ray’s son Sandip Ray.

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(Shweta Basu Prasad is a national award-winning actor. Shweta is a graduate in mass media and journalism.)