River
Directed by Jennifer Peedom
Written by Robert Macfarlane and Jennifer Peedom
Narrated by Willem Dafoe
Unrated
Runtime: 75 minutes
In theaters April 21, on demand May 30

by Daniel Pecoraro, Contributor

River is billed as a film basically unlike any other. A spiritual sequel to Jennifer Peedom’s previous film Mountain, it’s a non-linear “orchestral concert film” on the importance and universality of rivers in civilization, with music from the Australian Chamber Orchestra and occasional narration from Willem Dafoe. From that press note, I was expecting somewhere between a natural-history-museum IMAX film and an audiovisual version of a warm bath: something that would be both calming and awe-inspiring.

Most of the time, the film delivers on that emotional promise. Director and co-writer Jennifer Peedom takes the viewer on a look at rivers from glaciers to ravines to seas to storms (and back — y’all know how the water cycle works, I presume). It’s all over a soundtrack featuring pieces by Bach, Vivaldi, Ravel, and an ACO-commissioned piece by Jonny Greenwood, member of Radiohead and presumably the owner of a coveted spot on Paul Thomas Anderson’s contacts list. The viewer is treated to some truly stunning visuals in the first and third acts. Chief amongst them is a long tracking shot of water surging down a craggy mountain as a river is formed. The fauna of the river, including schools of fish, have a supporting role in these captivating scenes. The moments where Peedom steps back and lets nature, and the musical selections, do the job of telling the story are where the film shines brightest (or surges strongest, I guess). 

The issue with River is where the primary stream breaks off into torturous side-channels. A sequence on rivers as sources of commerce and agriculture begets a bunch of shots of cities and harbors around the world, historic footage of people along rivers, and the bulk of Dafoe’s narration. Sequences on irrigation (the drawing of rivers further from their source, the film argues) seems to spread the film a bit thin. And a scene on power plants, pesticides, and other river pollutants is both incredibly grim — “we will be remembered for all that we depleted, vanished, and killed,” Dafoe dourly intones — while not showing or telling us anything we haven’t seen from a multitude of other environmental docs. It’s just too much paint-by-numbers filler for a film of this brevity, not to mention keeping in mind how unique a feature it sets out to be.

Thankfully, there’s redemption in the last act of the film, both for River and for humanity, as we see a river become slowly undammed and restored. The reservoir rushes out, the stream reemerges, and grows into what it once was. It’s a sign of the power of nature — and the joy of witnessing nature in action — and a sign of hope and agency. Just as society has changed the face of rivers negatively, it can be a force of good. We will be remembered by what we restored and reversed, too.