the end begins
by Douglas Messerli
Rumer
Goden and Jean Renoir (writers, based on the novel by Rumer Goden), Jean Renoir
(director) The River (Le Fleuvre) / 1951
In many ways, Renoir’s great film The River behaves somewhat like a
traditional film. There is a plot, for example—borrowed from Rumer Goden’s
fiction of the same name—centered around a happy Anglo-Indian family, immersed
in Indian life and religion. Renoir portrays that world, in beautiful color, as
almost a kind of Edenic life, where The Father (Esmond Knight), the head of a
Jute company, and The Mother (Nora Swinburne) overseeing five daughters and a
young son, along with a nanny and other servants. This Eden not only
encompasses their beautiful house and yard, but extends to the village around
them and particularly The Ganges, the holy river around which most of the local
activity is based. Both this family's and their neighbor’s lives are highly
involved with the Hindu traditions surrounding them.
Into
this Eden comes a kind of Adam and Eve in the forms of Mr. John’s (Arthur
Shields) daughter, Melanie (Radha), who looks like her Indian mother, and the
neighbor’s cousin, Captain John (Thomas E. Breen), an American soldier who has
lost his leg in battle. With their appearance the young girls of house next
door now have a romantic model in Melanie and a focus for their coming-of-age
fantasies in the handsome Captain. In particular, the gangly Harriet (Patricia
Walters) and her more mature friend Valerie (Adrienne Corri) vie for the
attentions of the listless Captain, while Melanie becomes torn between her
distant relative and a local Indian boy.
Both
Mother and Nanny wisely watch over these teenage fixations, knowing all too
well that they are necessary for maturation. When Harriet’s young brother,
however, becomes attracted to the movements of a nearby cobra, eventually being
killed by its bite, these minor melodramas turn into tragedy, as Harriet, who
knew of cobra’s existence, suffers both rejection by the Captain and now the
guilt of her brother’s death. Attempting to put an end to her life, she takes a
out a skiff into the dark night currents. Fortunately, she is observed by
Indian boaters, who follow and save her, the Captain returning her home.
Yet,
for all this “story,” Renoir’s film is not so much a tale of the family as it
is a kind of panoramic documentary of Indian life. By far, the greatest number
of images are not focused on the purposely amateurish cast and their quiet joys
and sorrows as it is on the market place, the jute factory, the holy shrines,
and, most importantly, the river and river life.
Filmmaker Satyajit Ray, who worked with Renoir on this film, criticized The River as being too centered upon its
Anglo figures; but I would argue that the story, lovely as it is, hardly
matters alongside of Renoir’s engagement with Indian culture and landscape. A
kite, images of Kali, Indian dances, piles of jute, heaps of vegetables,
capons, cobras, small containers of oil, bowls of milk, and the bronzed bodies
of Indians matter far more in this movie than do the comings and goings of the
Anglo family and friends. The colors of this landscape are one of the central
focuses of the film: the reds of the rivers, the greens, blues, yellows, and
white of toys, dresses, and floor paintings are the true subject of Renoir’s
meditation.
So
too does Renoir back away from human evaluation, focusing instead on the simple
rhythms of life. Bodily movement and dance are also at the heart of The River. While Renoir’s Indian
characters are almost always in motion, gracefully carrying their burdens upon
their heads, steering their boats into port, joyfully swimming, mesmerizing a
snake, celebrating the marriage ceremony in traditional movements, using their
hands and feet to say hello or goodbye, Renoir’s Anglo folk are gangly and clumsy:
they spend much of their afternoons flat on their backs, asleep on the lawn;
the one-legged captain can hardly dance and loses his balance; the child,
imitating the snake-charmer, is destroyed. If Renoir has kept the plot of
Godden’s Anglo story, he has made a film that is thoroughly Indian in its
rhythms and hues.
Los
Angeles, March 17, 2012
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