RIVER

Music evokes powerful images and emotions in our imagination, so when film-maker, Jennifer Peedom and musical director/composer Richard Tognetti collaborate on creative decisions, expect to be emotionally moved.

RIVER is a documentary featuring much more than just aerial shots of flowing water.

It explores the very essence of how rivers are formed and how humans gather what they need but frequently interfere, leaving waste when they try to tame and shape the flow.

Shown, are the required film clips of stunning blue formations taken from on high, as well as clear, underwater glimpses of pristine trout shimmying past cool rocks.

There is fishing, harvesting, netting, gathering and even agricultural reticulation.

Archival footage reminds us of engineering feats that harness the power of flowing water.

Unexpected, was a majestic, swooping drone-filmed sequence of inaccessible glaciers, streaming their life-giving liquid into crevices that carry it thousands of kilometres down the mountain sides, accumulating in huge lakes.

Accompanied by Johann Sebastian Bach’s Chaconne, this montage is significantly awe-inspiring.

Mr Tognetti’s specially curated “mix-tape” of modern and classical music includes Vivaldi, Mahler, Sibelius as well as Jonny Greenwood from band, Radiohead.

Greenwood’s use of string instrument, the tanpura is used evocatively behind a sequence featuring The Ganges.

Other bespoke pieces by Tognetti, Piers Burbrook de Vere and William Barton (who also performed didgeridoo and sang with the orchestra), set the tone for scenes of other familiar rivers, The Murray, The Hudson, The Snowy, The Nile and The Franklin.      

Cleverly, floor-based lighting is used to colour the orchestra with amber flickers of fire or flashes of lightning mirroring the projections of pelting rain, gliding snowflakes, and gathering clouds.  The water cycle has never looked so splendid.

Instruments are perfectly matched with imagery.

A kayak plummeting down a waterfall is accompanied by a glissando of violin that changes to pizzicato when raindrops sprinkle; slicing violin bows synchronise scratchily with tableaux of snow-capped peaks; drums boom as a dam is exploded, releasing the imprisoned water (and wildlife) back to where it can resuscitate nature, with great satisfaction.

Narration, written by Robert Macfarlane and spoken by Willem Dafoe, is sparse and sometimes poetically to the point.

“Where, finally, river meets sea” was illustrated with a vista I recognised as The Capel River running into Peppermint Grove Beach, two hours South of Perth.  Other viewers may have their own special places in mind when they view this film.

Special mention must go to Satu Vänskä, who stepped away from her Violin twice, to contribute haunting, modern vocals over key scenarios.

With precision timing required for the orchestra to synchronize with the opening credits, match timing with scenes of hand-flung fishing nets and echo key quotes from the narrator, such as “Look after the River, and the River will look after you”, I was surprized that only one small technical hitch occurred.

However, just as choked up rivers can quickly recover, it seems that a fine, collaborative team, working as one, can also recuperate, if they just go with the flow.

Final aerial images of blossoming rivulets, resemble abstract paintings of human arteries, veins of leaves or boab tree branches.

A quote from W. H. Auden, used earlier in the film, comes back to mind, “Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.”

Presented for The Perth Festival, this performance was SOLD OUT.

RIVER, the film, is distributed by Madman Entertainment.

Jane Keehn