 With a loan from the West Bengal government , Ray finally completed the film . It was released in 1955 to great critical and popular success . It earned numerous prizes and had long runs in both India and abroad . In India , the reaction to the film was enthusiastic ; The Times of India wrote that " It is absurd to compare it with any other Indian cinema [ ... ] Pather Panchali is pure cinema . " In the United Kingdom , Lindsay Anderson wrote a glowing review of the film . But , the reaction was not uniformly positive . After watching the movie , François Truffaut is reported to have said , " I don 't want to see a movie of peasants eating with their hands . " Bosley Crowther , then the most influential critic of The New York Times , wrote a scathing review of the film . Its American distributor Ed Harrison was worried Crowther 's review would dissuade audiences , but the film had an exceptionally long run when released in the United States . 
