La rivière du hibou

I cannot believe that this film is remembered by more than myself! I was a young teenager waiting for the main picture to start when this small black and white movie was shown as a filler. Forty years later, I can still remember the impact this film had on me. It was stunning! It reached me in such a way, that I have never forgotten it, and it was this film that started my love of cinema..Real cinema!

Over the years, I have mentioned this movie to many people, none of whom have even heard of it, I thought I'd imagined it all..! It was also the film that had me wishing I could work in the movies.... Forty years on, I still have that same dream! Silly isn't it?

I first saw this film on The Twilight Zone when I was only about eleven.It was unforgettable.I believe it was a winner at the Cann Film Festival also.Just recently bought it and shown it to many friends.They all loved it.

Rod Serling brought this to American attention as a part of the Twilight Zone series and I have to agree with his departure from the popular series. A great story, intimately told. It points out the beauty of life and how it is magnified when death threatens. I think it is as good or even better than any Zone episode both in style and depth.

BUYER BEWARE!

This short film is only one part of a three-story anthology film by Robert Enrico called "Au coeur de la vie" (1962) (please see elsewhere in IMDb). All three stories are inspired by Ambrose Bierce short stories about the American Civil War.

Something very strange happened to this particular episode of "Au coeur de la vie" (whose title is the translation of Ambrose Bierce's collection of short stories "In the Midst of Life"). First of all, it was proposed as Best Short Subject at the Oscars in 1962 and won, even though it had probably never been shown commercially that way in the US or anywhere else. Second, it was chosen as the very last episode of Rod Serling's TV series "The Twilight Zone", in a cost-cutting gesture.

It is this truncated version that is generally available on VHS and DVD today. It is unfortunately not the way its director wanted it and the two other episodes of that film ("L'oiseau moqueur" and "Chickamauga", a.k.a. "La Bataille de Chickamauga") have totally disappeared from everyone's consciousness.

That is really sad as I remember seeing the whole film in a cine-club in 1963 and going through a thoroughly gut-wrenching emotional experience because of the cumulative effect of these three stories. For the record, "L'Oiseau moqueur" ("The Mockingbird") tells of the terrifying confrontation of two brothers on a battlefield and "Chickamauga" relates the famous battle from the point of view of a six-year-old deaf and mute child living on a plantation.

Some producer somewhere probably decided that the entire film would be too intense to be shown in its entirety to an American audience and it has since sunk under the waters of forgetfulness, except for that maimed "Twilight Zone" episode, edited for the inclusion of commercials.

Let us all pray that somebody, somewhere will rescue it from the ravages of time before it is too late and make the whole thing available on DVD, in its original, uncut, uncompromised form, very, very soon

The original writer of the story was a civil war reporter. He covered many such events as outlined in the film. I like this film for many reasons. First, it is a black and white film to capture the feeling of the story. Next, the story was very realistic for the time in which the story takes place. Also, there are very few spoken lines. Finally, the twist at the end is worth the wait. I am not going to spoil the ending, but please be patient to the end. I promise that you will not be disappointed. When I was in college my class studied this film for all of the above points. It is short, only about 30 minutes, but the time is not wasted. It is a moving piece and I recommend it to anyone!