THE END OF THE RIVER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 472, 9 July 1948, Page 25

THE END OF THE RIVER

€ Rank-Archers) "HOSE two capable Archers, Messrs. Powell and Pressburger, may often appear to draw a bow at a venture, but if they sometimes fail to hit the goid they usually manage to land somewhere on the target. This adventurous quality in their films can be both exhilarating and exasperating-exhilarating in the way it provides intimate glimpses of two artistic minds at work, exasperating sometimes when some rich promise fails to reach complete fulfilment. After seeing The End of the River and the recent Black Narcissus: I am inclined to believe that it is a preoccupation with the pictorial art of the film which most often leads them astray, or at least distracts their attention (and the filmgoer’s) from the story they have set cout to tell, For The End of the River is in many respects a beautiful production. It has some shots and scenes in which one might swear that each frame of film had been thought out in advance in terms of artistic composition-the dip and thrust of paddles in the river, the grouping of figures in a Brazilian lawcourt, the intricate and graceful patterns made by giant lily-pads in a Sequestered backwater. The river is, of course, the Amazon, and I would not be surprised if most of. the outdoor photography had been shot in the authentic surroundings and some of the sound recorded there as well-though I suspect that the lily-pads were grown at Kew. Nor is the photography just superficially good. The camera has been used with much care and forethought to link the various episodes of the story together, and the sound

has also been employed deftly in one or two places to key a mood or underline a dramatic situation. I remember in this connection a pleasant little song sung round a campfire by Bibi Ferreira (a capable little Brazilian actress), the refrain of which carries over into the next scene when all in the camp are fast asleep, while at another point in the story a cough, repeated once, is used with good dramatic effect. The main ground on which I would criticise The End of the River is that there are too many episodes, that the story (based on a novel by Desmond Holdridge) has not been as well edited for screen purposes as it might have been, and that in consequence the final dramatic crisis takes us unawares. But even giving due weight to these objections I would recommend it as well worth seeing. If it is a virtue in a film to show us a new thing, then The End of the River is to be commended-at least, I can’t recall having seen any picture set in that part of the world before. As the young Arekuna native from the upper Amazon, whose bewildering contacts with civilisation make up the theme of the story, Sabu has a very exacting role-and, it must be conceded, makes a fair job of it, though no one could possibly mistake him for a South American Indian after the splendid shots of these native people seen in the earlier parts of the film. Bibi Ferreira is an engaging discovery (with a head which I’m sure Epstein would love to sculp) and the minor characters are for the most part satisfyingly played, But I was left with the feeling that the real star of the picture was the River. _ was sorry when-we got. to the end of it.