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The good news is that Renoir's distinctive 'rhythm' is at work here; a sort of pacing that only a master can achieve. The bad news is that some of the dialogue and the acting by both professional and amateur actors is agonisingly arch. The theme of life, destruction and rebirth is neatly illustrated in the Hindu rituals and mirrored in the tribulations of a rather theatrically played English colonial family whose teenagers lose innocence and in the case of one actual innocent, a life. The film ends beautifully with a glorious Indian spring and a new birth in the colonial family. All well and good but for the Edwardian almost Victorian sentimentalising of childhood innocence. It was such agony to sit through that I was tempted to scream 'FIRE' in order to end the torture and make my escape.
score 5/10
dgerroll 6 August 2005
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1143979/ |
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19-2-2021 04:58:07