Try as it might to be a newfangled attempt to warn viewers to the perils of mankind’s collective assault on the global ecosystem, the gorgeously shot but narratively bereft documentary “River” is a narrative train wreck.
It achieves little beyond reminding general audiences why art house posturing and tree-hugging messaging will forever fail to impress those not already indoctrinated with pie-in-the-sky hoopla and unfounded fearmongering.
Baring more than a passing resemblance to the equally misguided “Watermark” (2017), co-director (along with first-timer Joseph Nizeti), Jennifer Peedom’s follow-up to her equally unimaginatively titled “Mountain,” “River” is all aesthetics, thoroughly lacking in anything resembling context.
Earth Day
Ironically (or perhaps not) released on Earth Day (April 22), “River” attempts, with middling results, to capture the spirit and visual grandeur of past like-minded “Disneynature” Earth Day productions such as “Oceans,” “The Crimson Wing,” and “Dolphin Reef.” Comparisons can also be made to the Greg MacGillivray-directed IMAX shorts “The Living Sea,” “Dolphins,” and “Grand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk.”Radiohead Warning
Known mostly as the leader of the band Radiohead, Greenwood has scored quite a few features, including “You Were Never Really Here,” “Spencer,” “The Power of the Dog,” and the five most recent films by director Paul Thomas Anderson. A caveat-emptor for Greenwood and Radiohead fans: although both are listed on the film’s poster, there is only a single Greenwood composition (an excerpt of “Water” from 2012) and just one truncated Radiohead performance.We catch a whiff of the film’s pompous self-awareness at the top with the inclusion of a quote from the 1957 W.H. Auden poem “First Things First”: “Thousands have lived without love but not one without water.” Wow, that’s some deep, deep, fortune cookie-level stuff and only hints at what’s to come.
Word Salads
The screenplay was co-written by the directors, and it is … a disaster. Here are some examples on the nonsensical doublespeak contained in the film:“For eons, running water obeyed only its own laws … to be truly alive, a river must be wild: willful and unhindered. Yearning for the ocean, its only purpose is to descend.” Water has its own laws?!
“For all their might, though, rivers are fragile: easily harmed, not so easily mended, … time and again, upstream need and upstream greed have led to downstream disaster.” Mighty, yet fragile … ?
“We must ask ourselves are we being good ancestors?” What does that mean?!
“As we have learned to harness the power of rivers, have we forgotten to revere them?” Do rivers even know if they’re being revered?
“Rivers are the source of human dreams.” Foolish me, I thought sleep was the source of dreams.
“We once worshipped rivers as gods.” So were the Sun, the Moon, the stars, and fire until we figured out there is only one deity.
“Rivers run into the future and remember the past.” Wow, water has a memory and can time travel?
The Trouble With Dams
Largely devoid of political finger-wagging, “River” nonetheless projects some degree of guilt and shame on inanimate objects, namely dams. Acknowledging that dams artificially control water flow while often providing a reliable source for electricity, these man-made constructs are allegedly responsible for parched riverbeds. The filmmakers back up this claim with a time-lapse segment where one dam is “imploded,” and water does indeed soon revitalize dried earth which is good thing, that is, until this same unnamed river banks are flooded by future rains.Also going unidentified are the 39 countries visited for the (mostly drone captured) footage. The filmmakers and their 18 (!) cinematographers come up with some truly spectacular images, many of which bare a strong resemblance to paintings by Georgia O’Keefe. Actually, knowing just where the images originated would have provided some much-needed context.
Before even starting, the film includes text which reads: “This work contains flashing images which may affect viewers who are susceptible to photosensitive epilepsy.” I noticed this same exact warning-disclaimer at the start of “Infinity Pool” from earlier this year and, after viewing both films, I understand its intent.
If you are sensitive to sudden bright and flashy visuals, you might want to skip this one. The same advice goes for anyone not interested in mediocre, self-aggrandizing filmmaking.
