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Touches You

Great Film overall

Best movie of this year hands down!

The acting in this movie is really good.

The River is all about the construction of space and how people find their way through life. Filmed in India and in color, the spectator is immediately invited to the exotic. The title cards are imprinted into the diegetic world through scrolling long take, fusing the authorial voice with the fiction. There is a theme of auteurship in the story of The River that overtakes the superficial story of first love. The idea of first love is objective but the authorship is far from that. The portrayal of India is ethnographic but also biographical. The great depth of field serves a sense of pseudo-documentary. Identification is confounded somewhat through a lack of closeups. When there is a closeup, it is a two-shot. The adaptation beguiles an otherwise obvious example of the development of Renoir's famous stylistic system. Candid honesty is at the fore rendering the realism of group dynamics similar to Regle or M. Lange. However, the adaptation renders the literary directly to painterly while the authorship in voice-over narration retains a pure psychological focus on Harriet. Captain John is the object, that which provokes jealousy never has its own position elucidated. The voice-over narration gets intriguing as Harriet's character knows of events she was not present for. Harriet's diegetic character then narrates a story whose events are shown on-screen rendering multiple diegeses. When we believe we have returned to the first layer of diegetic, unpredictable events beg the question of whether we have slipped into a deeper secret layer and what connection they might all have to each other. The power of the authorship of Renoir and Godden combined subvert a political or even ethnographic study of the story. We are forced to submit to the coming-of-age-love-story alone. These self-reflexive characteristics have a strong connection to Renoir's Woman on the Beach. Again, many characters are underdeveloped highlighting the power of the authorial voice as a non-Transcendental 'Other'. According to Renoir, the universal element of the film was dance, however, I found its tableau framing to be inert in an unattractive way. Perhaps I am too much of a control freak to submit fully to a powerful authorial voice and as such The River is a film best left to those who love being taken along for a ride as opposed to those who must play at being a backseat driver. Of course, this statement has a deep irony in Renoir's own philosophy of the cork in the river.

Only Jean Renoir could make a film like The River simply because of the way it is photographed. As the son of a famous impressionist painter, Renoir's eye is so keen in capturing the exotic beauty so foreign and yet so attractive to Westerners, both European and American. Perhaps the most amazing element about this film is the way in which it accepts and acknowledges many beliefs the Indians hold to and the parallels they have to our own western traditions. The cyclical nature of life and death is ever prevalent here as is conflicting feelings between desire and duty. Every character here is conflicted over something, which allows for great insight through dialogue and that wonderful narration. Above all, Renoir captures the audience's full attention and understanding of this far away land that may not be as different from our own as we think. In much the same way as us, they desire health, safety, love and tranquility. For those who have never seen a film about India that doesn't lower itself to the traditional stereotypes of dirty animals, impoverished streets and dangerous situations, here is a film that showcases its beautiful eccentricities and how people are generally the same everywhere. It is also one of the most beautiful color films ever made. Of course it is. After all, it is a Renoir.

Wow. What a special film this was! On the surface so basic but underneath a deeply spiritual and satisfying adventure... I cannot say enough about the color, and the process used, something Martin Scorsese talks about in length during an interview on the Criterion disc. To him, along with the Red Shoes, this is the most beautiful color film ever made, and I would have to agree with him. A shot of an orange tree stands out in my mind towards the end, it sways in the wind against a bright blue background, and it gave me goosebumps all over my body. The film plays very much like a dream, beneath somewhat mediocre acting and story, but I won't get into that, because I didn't feel as though that mattered as much as the overall feeling and purpose the film left with me afterwards... Some people I was with really didn't respond to it the way I did, but I think you have to enjoy it on a different level or it has the potential to fail, but when I saw it I found it a great, great masterpiece, better than any other Renoir film I have ever seen (I know Rules of the Game is considered his greatest, but that doesn't stand next to this at all in my mind). See it also for the beautiful cinematography of the culture of India during colonial rule, which has all but transformed by now.

I saw this film a long time ago and I really loved it. I'm very interested in buying a DVD version of the film suitable for being watched in Europe, but the only versions I can find on the Internet are for Region 1 (United States). I would be very recognized if someone could help me and tell me if there's any version available for Region 2 (Europe). I'm sure there are a large number of people in Europe who would be interested in buying a DVD version of it. Thank you very much for your help. As for the film itself I really appreciate the slow rhythm of the film, similar to that of the water of the river passing by. It creates a very intense, touching, atmosphere.