The River (1951)
(On Cable TV, November 2019) If you’re looking for the hidden link between French and Indian cinema, look no further than The River, a film for which Jean Renoir went to India and ended up hiring no less than Satyajit Ray as an assistant. The rest, as they say, is history as Ray (who previously worked in advertising) became one of India’s most acclaimed directors. The irony here is that if you stripped off every name from The River, showed it to cinephiles and asked them which of Renoir or Ray made this, many would pick Ray. The River has, for better or for worse, the characteristics of a certain kind of slow meandering classic Indian cinema—starting from the subject matter, which describes a coming-of-age story during the British Raj era. While skillfully made, I’ll admit to my limitations in trying to appreciate the results—this isn’t my kind of cinema, and while I find the Renoir/Ray historical connection fascinating, it doesn’t make the film more interesting to me. That’s fine—considering the number of best-ever-movies lists on which The River figures, it doesn’t need my approval.
(Second viewing, On Cable TV, May 2023) I’m surprisingly happy to report that The River is a lot more interesting a second time around — perhaps thanks to a batter understanding of what the film tries to be about — once you focus on the theme of life, death and rebirth as linked to the meandering, unstoppable flow of a current, a lot of the film comes into much better focus. In hindsight, it’s also easier to appreciate the accessibility of the film: Sure, colour shouldn’t make any difference but compared to a lot of similar movies of the era (or decades later), The River’s terrific colour cinematography makes it a great document of the era. Sure, the perspective on India from a foreigner living there and exploiting local labour may be not be our idea of ideal, but it is a smooth way inside the atmosphere of the time and place, and it is a perspective that you can’t really get any more. The somewhat mean plotting of the film’s last third becomes much more meaningful when you look at it thematically than narratively, and the rather surprising charm of its teenage narration becomes more apparent. I’m glad I ended up revisiting The River — I don’t exactly love it, but I like and respect it well enough this time around.