Product description

The River [1951] (REGION 1) (NTSC)

Price: £14.07
Average customer rating: 5.0

Binding : DVD
EAN : 9780780029620
ISBN : 0780029623
Label : Criterion
Manufacturer : Criterion
Publisher : Criterion
Release date : 2005-03-01
Title : The River [1951] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actor : Array
Format : Array
Languages : Array
Number of items : 1
Original release date : 1951-01-01
Region code : 1
Running time : 99
Studio : Criterion
Theatrical releaseDate : 1951
MPN : PMIDRIV060D

Customer reviews

review by: date: 2007-07-09 rating:

A wonderful movie of great humanity by Jean Renoir
This is a movie of great calm and humanity, which moves at its own rhythms. It's also a beautiful movie, shot in India by one of the great visual directors of our time. The story may seem simple on the surface, but it moves deeply into the currents of life, using India and the Ganges as metaphor. I can only say that the movie is an affecting look at how life goes on and how we grow within our lives.

The River tells its story through three girls on the brink of adulthood. Harriet, the daughter of the English manager of a jute mill on the banks of the Ganges; Radha, the daughter of their English neighbor whose mother was Indian; and Valerie, the daughter of a wealthy English couple whom we never meet. The three are close friends but each is dealing with with their changes in their own way. Then one day the American cousin of their neighbor arrives to stay for awhile. He lost his leg in the war and is handsome. All the girls develop feelings for him and suddenly their own feelings for each other begin to change. And he has problems of his own. He hasn't come to grips with having only one leg, nor with what he feels is the pity toward him he has encountered. The reality of his life weighs on him. As the most mature of the girls tells him, "After a war yesterday's hero is only a man with one leg."

The story is told through the narration of Harriet as an adult. "Suddenly" she says, "we were running away from childhood and rushing toward love." In the course of four seasons they experience the ebb and flow of emotions just as the river ebbs and flows. There is a death, a birth, and life goes on. And by the end of the movie they, and we, have learned a good deal more about ourselves.

I like this movie a lot, and I have a great respect for it. The Region 1 Criterion DVD restores the picture to all of its Technicolor glory. It looks stunning. There are several extras. A short introduction by Renoir gives a fascinating look at what it took to get the film made. Martin Scorsese gives an appreciation of the film which is enlightening.

One sidelight is that the actor, Esmond Knight, who plays the father, was for all practical purposes blind. He enlisted in the royal navy at the start of WWII. During the battle to sink the Bismarck he had one eye destroyed and lost nearly all sight in the other. After he was invalided out he was determined to resume his acting career. His wife would teach him the lines for his movies and stage plays; he would memorize them (and everyone else's) by hearing them. She and others would block out his movements on the sets so that he could memorize exactly where the director wanted him to be, where he had to move, and all this in relation to the movements of the other cast members. Since he was blind, he had to master the technique of knowing exactly where to look so that it would appear he was looking where he should be. I challenge anyone to watch this movie and not be utterly convinced Knight was sighted. To my knowledge, he never played a blind man...and he had a long career in the movies (including five Powell/Pressburger films) and on the stage.

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