Jean Renoir, 1951 (7*)
The French master Jean Renoir discovered Ms. Rumer Godden's 1946 novel about living in India, The River, but couldn't find anyone to back the film as the story lacked the usual action elements of most western films about Asia. Eventually a florist tycoon, Kenneth McEldowney, backed the film but they didn't have enough capital to hire big Hollywood actors, so the cast is actually part professional, part amateur. The book and film are really not about a strong plot (it centers on a young teenage girl's awkward coming of age), but are more like a documentary film on life along the Ganges, the river culture and lives along its banks; that and colonialist Britons trying to co-exist while living in a foreign country.

Released in 1951, this was Renoir's first film in English and first color film. Son of the famous French impressionist painter, Auguste, he really captured beautiful, rich early Technicolor. Martin Scorsese, moved by this film at age 9 in the theater, led the restoration effort, completed in 2004. The Criterion dvd edition is gorgeous as the look is really the film's star, the glorious cinematography of a beautiful and colorful slice of Hindu culture.

For me the highlight of the Criterion dvd is the documentary done by the BBC, An Indian Affair, in which they returned to India with an 88 year old Rumer Godden to visit the locales where she grew up and that she hadn't seen in over half a century. Sadly, many have been allowed to deteriorate. This documentary is as well filmed as the Renoir movie, and the dvd also features interfiews with Scorsese, Renoir, and producer McEldowney.

Westerners may learn about Indian culture from this film; though some of the techniques look a little dated, and the acting a little forced at times, this was the first color film shot in India, and as such, the movie takes on a more important societal role than mere entertainment.