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As the day evolves into night; night into day; life into death; death into life all in a circle so does the waters of the river flow around the Earth in a circle- transient, but everlasting.
The film is visually beautiful, magical, and literally poetic in parts by the stories and poetry recited in it. On the surface it appears as a coming of age story of 3 teenage girls in love with a disabled visiting American war veteran, but underneath it is something more: a story about the transience of youth and an ode, a love song to India; an idealized India that is of the 1920's as seen through the eyes of its colonizers, the British, who have fallen in love with it. As such we see no images of poverty and exploitation. In fact, we rarely get to know the Natives as individuals, especially as the story line is centered around British and American characters. Yet, still the film is worthwhile to see, as it provides a fascinating glimpse into India; of its people, superstitions, religion, and way of life. The film has one major flaw hindering a 10 star review and that is lack of character development. Under Bergman, this film could have been a masterpiece. Sadly, the characters never seem to emerge into truly 3-D individuals; preventing us from understanding what they feel and feeling what they feel. Character development needs time and I have little doubt that Renoir was restricted by time constraints imposed by Hollywood. Nevertheless a film worth seeing.
score 8/10
jessicacoco2005 6 October 2017
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3823970/ |
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19-2-2021 04:58:08