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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
God dwells in the heart of all beings, Arjuna; thy God dwells in thy heart. And his power of wonder moves all things – puppets in a play of shadows – whirling them onwards in the stream of time.
– Krishna, in The Bhagavad GitaHands lovingly paint intricate filigrees on the ground. A sitar plays the serene opening strains of a raga as the narrator, a mature English woman whose voice is wise and comforting, begins to speak: “In India, to honor guests on special occasions, women decorate the floors of their homes with rice flour and water. With this … we welcome you to this motion picture, filmed entirely in India, in Bengal, where the story really happened.”
Thus, The River (1951), the film that inaugurates the second great period of Jean Renoir's career, presents the first of its interpretations of itself, its own views, its creation, and its audience: The film is a beautiful design painted by loving hands to welcome us as honored guests on a special occasion. (It is a magical moment when, at the midpoint of the film, this opening image is reprised on the occasion of a wedding – a wedding that is the centerpiece of the film-within-the-film that represents a story told by the narrator's past self.)
The narrator goes on: “It is a story of my first love, about growing up on the banks of a wide river.
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