The River (1951)

Jean Renoir’s “The River”

Thematic Elements: 

Jean Renoir’s The River at its core is a film about the cycles of life repeating themselves with the force like that of a river pushing them along. It is a coming-of-age story in which our protagonists learn the realities of the world around them are that of a repeating cycle of life and death and their meaningless personal affairs and hopes are a distraction to what is truly important. The river in the story symbolizes the continuous and endless flow of life and death which bring people together to it; the water is a metaphor for life. The river is integral for the lives of the Indians living there and is a place of freedom, peace, and worship. Renoir shows this India as being one of mystique and mystery to the Western audience, but he also portrays it as a place of serenity and a dedication to tradition. The Indians in the film have purpose and use their purpose to glorify the life they have; however finite it is. Renoir contrasts this freedom and purpose of Indian life with that of the white upper-class family living there in post-colonial India. As the Indians find meaning and purpose in their lives, the members of the white upper-class family appear lost and confused, meandering in meaningless squabbles and social games to preoccupy themselves. The central protagonists of the family are the two eldest girls and the newly arrived Captain John – all of whom are more concerned about their own affairs and are too distracted to observe and surrender to the life and beauty of what’s around them. Even though the characters live in this country, they seem to be lost in a foreign land – which mirrors their sense of being lost as individuals. Harriet is too lost in love for John, Valerie is lost in herself as a person which causes her to play games with other characters, and John is just completely lost as he is coming to terms with the loss of his leg and feeling as though he has lost a part of himself as well as he has wandered from place to place searching unsuccessfully to find where he belongs. All the characters want something out of life. Bogey, the young boy, wants to control the world around him. In this way, he represents the colonization by his own country and the notion that one must control the mysterious outside world – and in the end it is learned that the chaos of this mysterious world around him cannot simply be controlled. Valerie wants to manipulate and control the people around her. Because she is not truly a member of the family, she feels independent of herself and lost in who she is as a person. She uses this restlessness in her identity to play social games with people, mostly Captain John. She flirts with him even though she doesn’t want him, and she even plays a physical game with him knowing that he only has one leg. Captain John wants to disregard his shortcomings of life and doesn’t want to accept the unavoidable restrictions imposed on him. The loss of his leg makes him feel a loss of control and he loses his understanding of what makes him an individual as he is constantly trying to search for meaning in his life, unsatisfied with what life has given to him. Melanie wants to fit into a society rather than be ostracized. Because her mother was Indian and her appearance is that of Indian descent, she appears too foreign for those in her white upbringing. And because of her wealth in the current caste system, she is disregarded by her mother’s people as being foreign as well. She wants a place to belong as she straddles the line of her mother’s Indian upbringing and her father’s white cultural society. Harriet, our narrator, simply wants the things she wants, like the love of John and for harmony and permanence in her life.  However, at the end of the film, none of the characters get what they want out of life but rather are forced to emerge out of the story as wiser, more humane, and mindful of the endless river of life and its many births and deaths. They are too caught up in their own wants and desires that they fail to take in the culture of oneness around them. 

Camerawork:

 Renoir films the lives of the protagonist in an ordered, cloistered life inside estate walls which bear stark contrast to the exotic, crowded, and complicated world outside. Being Renoir’s first color film, he uses stark colors to enrich the vibrancy of the Indian society and world around the characters. This color and beauty bears this vibrancy as mystery and intrigue which is attracting us outside the walls of our comfortability. Renoir goes so far as to focus on the Indian culture throughout the film and back away from the core narrative. Renoir’s choice to fragment the movie and the story to permeate Indian culture, history, and philosophy shows how dull and foolish the meanderings of the young girls and Captain John seem to be. The characters are ignoring the beauty and culture around them, something that strikes more meaning in Renoir as he views these elements to be more essential to the life lessons that must be learned by the characters. 

Best Shot: 

The best shot in the film is the dance sequence. As Harriet tells the story of Krishna, Renoir abandons rudiment time and space to present us this story outside of the story presently primarily in the film, which set a precedent which would later be well utilized by the French New Wave movement of the 1960s. The sequence then displays a dance that character in the story performs, exquisitely. The mesmerizing and entrancing sequence feels all the alien to the Western view, but still is absolutely beautiful. This sequence is able to convey the film itself and its theme of the unknown and mystery of the world around you as something beautiful that should be worshipped, something that is endless and breathtaking.