River

This is a TV nature documentary. This starts with a lot of slow moving river beauty shots. Willem Dafoe's narration is a constant throughout. Then it's a lot of archival footage of mankind taming the rivers. After that initial section, the movie becomes a rotating snippet of various modern day scenes of rivers around the world. It may be only seventy five minutes but it feels longer. Mostly, I'm not sure about the point of it all. It certainly looks pretty. There is no denying the beauty of the cinematography. Dafoe's narration keeps going and going. One can view it as poetic but it left me grasping for meaning.

I can't believe how slow, dull and pretentious this film is. There is no imagination and the narration (script) made me cringe.

How could such a potentially exciting subject be rendered so flat? I don't know what the aim of the picture was, but entertainment, excitement, joy, they were not on the list.

For me there would be much better uses of my time.

I watched the documentary "River" on Netflix, and it profoundly impacted me. The film raises compelling questions about the legacy we wish to leave as ancestors and our symbiotic relationship with rivers. It emphasizes the crucial responsibility we have to maintain the cleanliness of our rivers and to curb our greed to protect these vital waterways.

Water is an invaluable resource, yet it often seems neglected by both government policies and everyday actions. "River" served as a wake-up call, highlighting the urgent need for awareness and action. It's more than just a film; it's a clarion call for environmental stewardship.

I believe this documentary should be an essential part of school curricula to help instill a sense of responsibility and appreciation for nature in future generations. Very grateful to the creators of "River" for such a powerful and awakening film. Thank you so so much. This is life changing Doco!

Documentaries are notoriously difficult to rate because their value as art pieces can run against their value as perspective pieces.

River has beautiful cinematography with many phenomenal sweeping shots of natural formations, lightning and clouds, and waterfalls accompanied by a concert of equally beautiful music. Willem Dafoe's soothing narration completes the experience and overall makes for a masterfully done artistic piece.

Unfortunately for the script itself, despite Willem Dafoe's excellent narration, it contains little to either present a perspective or provide sufficient information to open discussion to any interesting perspectives. It's shallow at best (no pun intended) and misleading at worst. At times I wondered whose shower thoughts I was intruding upon.

While spending the movie discussing how humanity has come to control rivers, it lightly touches upon the issue with how we handle disposable plastics as if it's inherent to how bodies of water are harnessed and not an otherwise mutually exclusive problem landing in nature's particulate highway. It ends an argument against damming with a river boldly reclaiming itself through the dam to bring its sediment back to a healthy place! Oh joy! Oh wait, a simple google search shows this is just annual routine for sediment to be dumped.

The deepest question the movie asks us is if it really is all worth it in the end? The subjugation of rivers, taking human control back from nature's "wisdom" and using rivers to humanity's benefit in an optimized fashion rather than letting causality take the wheel. Now this is just my opinion but: Yes! Humanity's ability to flourish and suffer less from simple tragedies like starvation and lack of energy to transport and operate critical infrastructure in necessity and in excess to allow for creativity such as this specious film are quite worth the cost!

All in all, River is a beautiful audiovisual experience and thought-provoking such that it is best enjoyed in a viewer's non-native language.

Absolutely absorbing and on par with the best David Attenborough documentaries. Willem Dafoe does a superb job at pacing the narration to the incredible imagery and proves that well written and narrated documentaries do not need the distraction of talking heads.