The River

This is a little known film, but well worth watching if you're lucky enough to find it on Video or TV. The director Jean Renoir is the son of the French Impressionist Painter Pierre Auguste Renoir ( the cinematographer Claude Renoir is Jean's nephew ) and the family talent shines throughout this film, which is beautifully shot. Whether showing the amazing landscape of India and the river itself, the colours and intricacies of the many Indian festivals, or even a close up of Valerie's face as she gazes at Captain John, every frame displays grace, beauty and style that film rarely captures.

The plot itself, how a troubled outsider affects three teenaged girls, is a simple tale, and all the more powerful for it. We've all had a crush, and know the river of emotions that are awakened by one. Each of the three girls, the irrepressible and dramatic Valerie, the talented but awkward Harriet, and the stoic Melanie ( who despite schooling in the West is somehow more Indian in nature than her friends who've been brought up in India ) vie for Captain John's affections in their own way.

However, the real love of this film is India itself - it's fascinating people, beliefs, festivals, and the constant River that runs through them all. It's a slow paced film, not in a hurry to get to any kind of conclusion, and you are immersed in the country, and what it's like to live there. Like relaxing on one of the many river boats, as its floats gently downstream, the film meanders along, showing us different scenes along the way, from the local postman's route to the house gates to the son's fascination with Cobras, with the story always moving on, though always interwoven with more day to day life. This brings a familiar reality to the film, it doesn't just skip moments that might not immediately concern the main characters - like life, other events happen, and they have their place in this film too.

Actually getting to watch this film will be hard, it's not well known ( and not even considered one of Renoir's best ), but if you ever come home one night, flick on the TV, and see this starting, then get comfortable, and enjoy a lovingly made film about a country and the people, both native and foreigners, who live there.

A really glorious, spellbinding movie. Filmed in Bengal, India, on the Ganges, it captures the essence of India, the timeless quality of life on the Ganges, without being patronizing.

This is a coming of age movie about three teenage girls, two British and one Anglo-Indian, and how their lives are affected by the arrival of a one-legged American war veteran. It's very easy to fall into sentimentality in a movie like this, but Renoir avoids this obvious pitfall. Though I have to say, I found this film very moving.

It helps that this movie is filmed in Technicolor, and is one of the best uses of Technicolor of that era.

Some of the performers were amateurs, including the actor who played the veteran and some of the children, but overall the performances are outstanding. A fine, low-key performance by Esmond Knight. This was the only film for Patricia Walters, who played Harriet, and Thomas Breen, the war veteran who played Captain Jack, never made any other movies. Watch for Arthur Shields, the brilliant Irish actor, as father of Nan.

There is something special about this movie. In fact, to say there is something special does not tell much, and it could be equally applied to hundreds of films which are much less special than this. So let's start again. I had never seen a film like "The River" before. Thanks to the Spanish TV program "Qué grande es el cine" I discovered this piece of Art created by a major artist: Renoir. Some of my other favourite movies are similar in some aspects to others. And so, "North by Northwest" resembles other thrillers with Cary Grant; "A Touch of Evil" is a moral fable and also a nightmare which reminds a bit of "The Night of the Hunter", and so on. But "The River" reminds me of nothing I have seen on a screen. It has to do with ethics and with life. It has to do with balance, with understanding human nature. I think this film has everything which can be told in a film. Absolutely everything. I believe this film reflects an attitude towards life and towards art. So I got it finally! This film is if anything an attitude. Once you have seen, you feel better, you know more about life, your perspective has changed. It is a ray of light. I should be compulsory in High School and everywhere.

Unlike many western movies i have seen that portrays Indians as if they were some nomadic people who are far from culture and sophistication, this film understands and illustrates the exact philosophy behind every deed that is performed by the Indians.

And also i wonder why can't so many great directors inspire from a film like this to understand that the true culture lies in philosophy and not in their race or color. I suppose it is easy to stick to stereotypes rather than educating through movies.

Therefore, it is not diversity for namesake that is important, but proper the depiction of one's understanding towards the diversity.

India has, through the years, fascinated many a major film-maker, including Robert Flaherty, Fritz Lang, Louis Malle, Michael Powell, Roberto Rossellini and Jean Renoir. Renoir's film, based on a novel by English novelist Rumer Godden of BLACK NARCISSUS (1947) fame, is as gorgeously shot (in ravishing Technicolor) as can be expected from a master film-maker and the son of a famous French impressionist painter; however, the narrative itself is rather disappointingly thin to support its 99-minute running time. Having said that, the coming-of-age story of two English girls living in India and loving the same young officer wounded in WWII, is appealingly performed by Nora Swinburne, Esmond Knight, Arthur Shields and Adrienne Corri. The central character, played winningly by newcomer Patricia Walters (whose only film this turned out to be) is a stand-in for Godden herself, whose considerable writing talent was not encouraged by her stern family. The film offers Renoir another chance to show his humanist side dwelling as it does on the strange (to Western eyes) social and religious customs of the Indian people; even so, when all is said and done, there is just too much local color in the film. However, as Renoir is not only one of my favorite film directors but arguably the greatest of all French film-makers, I am confident that a second viewing of THE RIVER will elevate significantly my estimation of it, as it is probably too rich an experience to savor all at one go.

Among the copious supplements on the Criterion DVD, there is a typically enthusiastic interview with Martin Scorsese (who also helped in funding the film's restoration) who waxes lyrically on the effect the film had on him as a 9 year-old film-goer; surprisingly for me, he also confesses that the appeal of Renoir's masterpiece, LA REGLE DU JEU (1939), an automatic candidate for the title of the greatest film of all time, escapes him!!