Featured Audience Ratings

• Ken S

  
  Martin Scorcese considers this and Michael Powell's Red Shoes to be the most beautifully photographed Technicolor films in history. It's hard to disagree. The craft and photography in this film belongs on the list with The Searchers, Il Conformista, and In the Mood for… More
  Martin Scorcese considers this and Michael Powell's Red Shoes to be the most beautifully photographed Technicolor films in history. It's hard to disagree. The craft and photography in this film belongs on the list with The Searchers, Il Conformista, and In the Mood for Love as the greatest achievments of color photography

• Walter M

  
  [font=Century Gothic]"The River", directed by Jean Renoir, takes place in India and concerns itself mostly with a British family living there. The father is a manager of a factory. The mother is especially adept at giving birth. She already has five daughters and a son,… More
  [font=Century Gothic]"The River", directed by Jean Renoir, takes place in India and concerns itself mostly with a British family living there. The father is a manager of a factory. The mother is especially adept at giving birth. She already has five daughters and a son, and another child is on the way. The eldest daughter, Harriet, is a wannabe writer and poet. Into this mix, is Captain John, an American who is visiting his cousin next door. He is recovering from injuries both psychological and physical(having lost a leg) during the war. His appearance has an emotional effect on the local young ladies.[/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic]"The River" is a beautiful film, shot on location in India in Technicolor. Occasionally, it does tend to veer off the narrative and become something of a travelogue. It did seem very old fashioned but not stereotypical in the least. Overall, it is a bittersweet coming of age tale. [/font]

• MJS M

  
  Jean Renoir is one of my favorite filmmakers, I especially love the films The Rules of the Game and Grand Illusion, both excellent looks class and war respectively. This film was made a good ten years after both and was his first color film. The film is in English (though it was not… More
  Jean Renoir is one of my favorite filmmakers, I especially love the films The Rules of the Game and Grand Illusion, both excellent looks class and war respectively. This film was made a good ten years after both and was his first color film. The film is in English (though it was not made in Hollywood) and was filmed in India. It?s told from the perspective of a British girl of about twelve or thirteen living with her family in colonial India next to the titular river (The Ganges). The film follows a fairly standard coming of age formula, the girl is infatuated with the wounded American war veteran who has moved in next door even though he is clearly more interested in her older sister. The plot isn?t really what the focus is here, the focus is really more on the backdrop of the river, which is a symbol for the stream of life which is juxtaposed with the trivialities of this day to day life. The film?s color photography is beautiful, it has that three strip Technicolor look to it that reminded me of the look of Powell and Presburger?s films. The setting must have felt very exotic to audiences at the time. The view of India is very much from the perspective of the colonial outsider and it often glosses over the social realities of the Indian people. It?s not the most politically interested film, and that is a surprise given Renoir?s previous examinations of class and poverty earlier in his career. I thought the acting was pretty weak during a lot of it, the main character has a lot of typical child actress weaknesses, and Thomas E. Breen is also pretty weak in the film (he was a non-actor). I wasn?t particularly impressed by it outside of it?s technical aspects for most of the running time, but a funny thing happened somewhere in the third act? I began to care about the characters, a lot. I really started to worry about their fates and by the end I really wanted to keep watching these people.

• Doctor S

  
  This was not the man vs. nature struggle I was rather expecting from the title, in fact this was directed by Jean Renoir and is a coming-of-age tale centered around an English family living in India. Watching the growing pains of privileged teenage sisters who are not particularly… More
  This was not the man vs. nature struggle I was rather expecting from the title, in fact this was directed by Jean Renoir and is a coming-of-age tale centered around an English family living in India. Watching the growing pains of privileged teenage sisters who are not particularly likable is not my idea of a great time at the movies, but the colors, sounds, and surroundings of India - shot entirely on location - makes it palatable.

• Tom S

  
  The shots of the family sleeping in the afternoon are my favorite part. And the Indian boy crying at the funeral.