The River (1951)
Three teenage girls are living in Bengali (India) near a big river : Harriet is the oldest child of a big family of English settlers... (imdb)
Cast and Information
Directed By: Jean Renoir
Written By: Jean Renoir, Rumer Godden
Starring: Esmond Knight, Arthur Shields, Adrienne Corri, Nora Swinburne, Thomas E. Breen, Richard R. Foster, Patricia Walters, Jane Harris, Radha, June Hillman, Suprova Mukerjee, Nimai Barik
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The River belongs to 41 collections
1. Criterion Collection (collaborative: moderated by caffe - 167 stars)
2. Roger Ebert: Great Movies (collaborative: moderated by PeaceAnarchy - 80 stars)
3. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2008 revision) (collaborative: moderated by Scottathon - 39 stars)
4. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2010 revision) (collaborative: moderated by MMAlpha - 32 stars)
5. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2014 revision) (collaborative: moderated by Jehan - 27 stars)
6. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2012 revision) (collaborative: moderated by PeaceAnarchy - 25 stars)
7. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2017 revision) (collaborative: moderated by iconogassed - 22 stars)
8. They Shoot Pictures' Recommended Viewing (collaborative: moderated by Cinephile - 19 stars)
9. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2013 revision) (collaborative: moderated by rant1229 - 16 stars)
10. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2011 revision) (collaborative: moderated by PeaceAnarchy - 14 stars)
11. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2020 revision) (public: djross - 14 stars)
12. Sight and Sound 2012 (collaborative: moderated by DavidB - 13 stars)
13. Harvard University's Suggested Film Viewing List: Narrative Films (collaborative: moderated by dardan - 12 stars)
14. Cahiers du Cinema: Best Film (collaborative: moderated by CCLZA - 10 stars)
15. David Thomson's 1000 Films (collaborative: moderated by MMAlpha - 7 stars)
16. Best by different standards (public: sesito71 - 6 stars)
17. Sisters (collaborative: moderated by djross - 5 stars)
18. Voiceover narration (collaborative: moderated by djross - 5 stars)
19. Books by Women that were made into Movies (collaborative: moderated by Dunstan-xxx - 5 stars)
20. They Shoot Pictures 1,000 Greatest Films (2007 revision) (collaborative: moderated by Scottathon - 4 stars)
21. Djross great movies (public: djross - 4 stars)
22. Criterion Collection (Blu-ray and 4K) (public: PepeCamello - 3 stars)
23. Djross film as art (public: djross - 3 stars)
24. Djross underrated movies (public: djross - 2 stars)
25. River (collaborative: moderated by djross - 1 star)
26. India (collaborative: moderated by djross - 1 star)
27. BAFTA Award for Best British Film (Nominees) (collaborative: moderated by ellinikos - 1 star)
28. A Year of Essential Cinema (collaborative: moderated by Ibetolis1 - 1 star)
29. criticker's underrated (collaborative: moderated by avgcrtckr - 1 star)
30. French director (collaborative: moderated by iconogassed - 1 star)
31. Lesinrocks - top 100 french movies (public: Thegoodboy - 1 star)
32. Metacosmic and sexorganological cinema (public: djross - 1 star)
33. British Rule of India (collaborative: moderated by iceblox)
34. Ricardo Bedoya's Top 10 Films of All Time (collaborative: moderated by CCLZA)
35. Stranger in a Strange Land (collaborative: moderated by PrestoBix)
36. Djross 1951 top five (public: djross)
37. 1951: Year in Review (public: polanski28)
38. Filmspotting Ratings Project: Week 29 (public: PeaceAnarchy)
39. Movies I Own (public: Farzan)
40. Sight and Sound 2012 - Combined list - Part II (public: Ariaz)
41. Djross the 100 films that define my taste (public: djross)
Browse the full list of collections
| Stars | User | Rating | |
| 3 |  |
joseywales | 65 44th |
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"Lots of girls have socks, but not a lot of girls have got crowns." Whoa, deep.
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| 2 |  |
MartinTeller | 26 2nd |
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Surprisingly awful movie. Bad acting. Boring, clichéd and stupid plot. Excessive voice-over, made all the worse by the flowerly "gosh-aren't-I-eloquent" language. Rather sexist, and a bit racist at times too. Melodramatic dialogue (every character over the age of 12 is simply oozing with pearls of wisdom). And the Technicolor in this movie looks terrible. Who needs to hear some British twit's isn't-it-ever-so-quaint impressions of India when we have the real thing in Satyajit Ray?
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| 2 |  |
djross | 86 96th |
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A beautiful film about a plainish young girl desperate to attract a man by showing him her depth of feeling through writing, in the process discovering her cosmos in all its enchantment and danger. Another girl remains stuck out of joint with the universe. Seventy years later, what strikes the viewer is the standardisation of cinematic storytelling that has occurred in the interim, and the loss of all ability to imagine the interior life of young women, or just the loss of interior life itself.
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| 2 |  |
billkerwin | 87 75th |
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Sensitive, sweet with great location technicolor photography. An interesting European view of India more than a half-century ago.
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| 2 |  |
Yiannos | 78 89th |
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Renoir entered the world of colour in style, but you don't have to be suffering from white guilt to find the colonial aspects of it somewhat troubling. It is difficult to tell whether its exotic representation of India symbolizes the vividness of childhood memory or whether it's simply the product of a naive (i.e. non malicious) eurocentric worldview. Nonetheless, the film is beautiful and full of idelible moments, even if the acting is amateurish and occasionally distracting.
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| 1 |  |
eveelun | 75 59th |
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An odd film that's half narrative about girls in love and half travelogue about India's customs. It's interesting, beautiful to look at, and has Renoir's charming sensibilities, but it feels pretty dated in terms of gender, social, and racial politics (though its heart is in the right place) and its characterization is lacking in comparison with Renoir's stronger features.
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| 1 |  |
willofgaia | 60 11th |
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The voice-over narration takes up about half of the film's running time (And, man, does it get old fast), and the character of Harriet is one of the most annoying in cinematic history.
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| 1 |  |
PeaceAnarchy | 72 32nd |
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I wish I could care more about the whiny entitled English brat who's the central character in the film. There's some good stuff here but the whole thing is flawed by focusing on entirely the wrong aspects of the story and characters.
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| 1 |  |
Valenzetti | 67 30th |
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So many problems. The unprofessional actors, the producer's technical constraints (should have stuck to floristry), the source material, the sappy voice-over needed to give all the above some kind of intelligibility; it was a perfect storm. And yet: vibrant Technicolor, some striking, if brief, documentary footage, hints of experimentation, and scenes in which the old Renoir shines through. It's frustrating. The death of colonialism hangs over the film, if it had just raised its gaze a bit more.
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| 1 |  |
snallygaster | 51 49th |
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A pleasant film, but not much more. I'm not sure that it's completely unaware of the colonial assumptions of its source material, but it's not exactly critical either. I like the on-location filming & diagetic music, although the sound design is not perfect by 21st century standards. There's exactly one truly compelling monologue in the film, and it's inexplicably cut off halfway through.
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| 1 |  |
Communicants | 65 40th |
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I prefer my Renoir films to be free of colonialist sympathies.
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| 1 |  |
nobamba | 70 76th |
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Renoir rightfully chooses the most colorful culture for his first color film. I enjoyed the meditative scenes of the flow of Bengal life and industry far more than the melodrama of teenage girl crushes, especially when Capt. John is not swoony at all. Fav scene: that movie-within-a-movie of the woman who falls in love with Krishna.
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| 1 |  |
JPFerguson | 75 80th |
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A fantastic advertisement for Technicolor, Bengal, and shooting on location. In contrast, it’s bad publicity for the English; to subvert Nino Culotta’s phrase, the English are a weird mob! While Renoir is obviously working with English source material, it’s still remarkable that he’s able to create a film that feels so English in content and form. Renoir’s use of non-professional actors is a resounding success in some cases (Patricia Walters) but not in others (Thomas E. Breen).
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| Average Percentile 60.59% from 358 Ratings |  |