How wonderful are the rhythms, color, and imagery as they flow lyrically along - man, beast, spreading tree. They succeed one another like the film's central metaphor, the living continuum, the river of life. The lyricism, however, tends to flatten out the story's sparse drama in a way that requires some patience. In fact, these rhythms are the point -- life, death, renewal -- all beautifully photographed in great splashes of Technicolor. To contemporary audiences, a film like this must seem an import from an alien world, and I suspect it was not commercial even on release -- who else in the US but an art house would show it! The story is slender and idealized, set indelibly in India, and likely the author's fond reminiscence of childhood under the British protectorate. Except for the boy's muted passing, not much really happens.The only conflict involves three girls competing for a youngish war veteran, and it's a measure of Renoir's approach that the competition never interferes with their friendship. Everyone, it seems, behaves with admirable restraint, even the dutiful servants, all of which serves to somewhat prettify the British presence.
Nevertheless, this is one of those movies that creeps up on you. It's only afterward, when the images have had a chance to linger and luminesce, that their sum total registers and you know you've seen something lasting. I, for one, am glad Renoir defied the rule and did not use pretty people; that would only have emphasized plot over theme, and individual over universal. Moreover, I wish more ordinary looking people appeared in movies, especially from Hollywood. Finding the unusual in the usual is the kind of thing I believe this movie was trying to bring out, while learning that lesson would do much to heal our celebrity- driven culture. This is a Renoir classic and demonstrates once again, amidst a slam-bang world, what can be done on the plane of artistic understatement
Nevertheless, this is one of those movies that creeps up on you. It's only afterward, when the images have had a chance to linger and luminesce, that their sum total registers and you know you've seen something lasting. I, for one, am glad Renoir defied the rule and did not use pretty people; that would only have emphasized plot over theme, and individual over universal. Moreover, I wish more ordinary looking people appeared in movies, especially from Hollywood. Finding the unusual in the usual is the kind of thing I believe this movie was trying to bring out, while learning that lesson would do much to heal our celebrity- driven culture. This is a Renoir classic and demonstrates once again, amidst a slam-bang world, what can be done on the plane of artistic understatement