The River

Jean Renoir's entrancing first colour film is a lyrical coming-of-age tale about a girl living with her English family on the banks of West Bengal.

Harriet is an upper-middle-class English teenager living on the banks of the Ganges in British India with her father and five siblings. When they are visited by a dashing American captain, Harriet and her best friend Valeria are both captivated, but he ignores them in favour of their friend Melanie. Their lives are irrevocably shaken, however, after Harriet’s brother becomes involved in a tragedy.

Shot entirely on location in India and based on the novel by Rumer Godden, The River was Jean Renoir’s first colour feature — and reputedly his favourite of his own films. A visual tour de force, the film is enriched by Renoir’s compassionate understanding of India and its people. The River gracefully chronicles universal themes of jealousy and desire, birth and death, with the river’s ebb and flow emerging as a metaphor for the wider complexities of life.