The two boys are neighbours and fast friends. Palash is the village priest’s son and a good student while Safikul, the son of a weaver, is the brat who doesn’t do his homework and is constantly being scolded by grown-ups. Set in 1993, Dostojee is the story of friendship between two shiny-eyed boys, Palash (Asik Shaikh) and Safikul (Arif Shaikh). There are shots with kaash phool (kans grass) bobbing in the wind there’s a travelling bioscope and a jatra (folk theatre) performance there is a father who is a priest, an embittered mother and a loving elder sister and there is the fearsome monsoon rain and the grief it can bring - yet all these details only serve to underscore just how different both Dostojee and the world in which it is set, are from Pather Panchali.
Dostojee is filled with loving odes to the unforgettable Pather Panchali.
Instead of trying to avoid references to Ray’s debut feature, director Prasun Chatterjee embraces the older film in his own. A Bengali director who sets his film in rural Bengal and has two children as protagonists is nothing if not brave because there will inevitably be a gaggle of cinephiles who will compare it to Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali (1955).
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