Satyajit Ray's "Two: A Film Fable" was commissioned for U.S. Public Television to satisfy Americans' growing interest in India in the mid- 1960s. (The same producers also commissioned a short documentary on Ravi Shankar, for example.) Apparently, Ray was asked to make his film accessible to a wide English-speaking audience. Instead of filming in English, however, Ray opted to film it without dialog. Music and sound effects are still present, but otherwise it plays like a silent movie, which was probably Ray's intention.
As the other reviewer indicates, it's a fairly simple story: a rich boy and a poor boy have a competition to see who has the better toys. But there's actually quite a lot going on. The rich boy lives in isolation, literally looking down on the poor from his high, barred bedroom window. All of his toys are Western, too: a Mickey Mouse hat, a wind-up robot, etc. By contrast, all the poor boy's toys are indigenous, and the wide-open space and freedom he enjoys outside suggest that Ray's sympathies lie with him (even though the film begins from the rich boy's point of view). As the subtitle "a film fable" indicates, there are additional layers of allegorical meaning. Ray seems to be criticizing the isolated and increasingly westernized lifestyle of India's elite upper-classes and celebrating the indomitable spirit of the common people. This film also contains one of the most powerful examples of a zoom I've ever seen, when the rich boy commits a small act of violence against the poor boy. There's no question that Ray was taking this assignment seriously, and his commitment to the project shows. It may lack the emotional resonance of Ray's feature films, and it may not reach the giddy experimental heights of the most famous short films. But it's incredibly satisfying.
As of March 2013, this film is still available on You Tube. There seems to be some confusion about its length: whether it's 10 or 15 minutes long. The version on You Tube runs just over 12 minutes and appears to be complete. Perhaps the confusion results from whether you're seeing it with its credits intact and/or whether you're seeing it in NTSC or PAL (which would result in a roughly one-minute time difference due to PAL's 4% speed-up)? Either way, it's well worth the time.
As the other reviewer indicates, it's a fairly simple story: a rich boy and a poor boy have a competition to see who has the better toys. But there's actually quite a lot going on. The rich boy lives in isolation, literally looking down on the poor from his high, barred bedroom window. All of his toys are Western, too: a Mickey Mouse hat, a wind-up robot, etc. By contrast, all the poor boy's toys are indigenous, and the wide-open space and freedom he enjoys outside suggest that Ray's sympathies lie with him (even though the film begins from the rich boy's point of view). As the subtitle "a film fable" indicates, there are additional layers of allegorical meaning. Ray seems to be criticizing the isolated and increasingly westernized lifestyle of India's elite upper-classes and celebrating the indomitable spirit of the common people. This film also contains one of the most powerful examples of a zoom I've ever seen, when the rich boy commits a small act of violence against the poor boy. There's no question that Ray was taking this assignment seriously, and his commitment to the project shows. It may lack the emotional resonance of Ray's feature films, and it may not reach the giddy experimental heights of the most famous short films. But it's incredibly satisfying.
As of March 2013, this film is still available on You Tube. There seems to be some confusion about its length: whether it's 10 or 15 minutes long. The version on You Tube runs just over 12 minutes and appears to be complete. Perhaps the confusion results from whether you're seeing it with its credits intact and/or whether you're seeing it in NTSC or PAL (which would result in a roughly one-minute time difference due to PAL's 4% speed-up)? Either way, it's well worth the time.