Popular reviews

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  Review by Jerry McGlothlin ★★★★ 5

  I. Distance

  Distance between two lands, and the essential body of water that divides them. The distance between a husband and wife, married before a relationship has time to blossom into fruition. Distance between a deceased mother and her orphaned son, and the impossibility of a true separation of their souls, even with the wall of death dividing them. It is that very separation that drives us in all our abilities and actions; a brutality exists when there is no togetherness in the world we live in. No one can rectify that which is irreparably defiled. Stark degrees of separation betwixt empathy and apathy, and why is this? Even the deepest river eventually runs dry, and by the time it…

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  Review by Darren Carver-Balsiger ★★★★ 5

  Weaving across many years and many plotlines, A River Called Titas is a portrait of people caught in a struggle against human nature, both through internal emotions and the growth of a modernising society. The titular river is the source of everything, providing the people a natural world, an economy to exploit, and a place to worship. It provides life itself. Yet A River Called Titas is also about the demise of culture and changing times, as the river dries up and new worlds emerge. The film is shot beautifully, with vast backgrounds of the enormous river stretching out into the distance. But the film is intimate too, moving inside houses to capture the quiet conversations between people. Across the…

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  Review by Sally Jane Black 1

  As powerful a metaphor as can be found in film, the titular river is the source of life, a symbol of continuity and livelihood for the people in this film. The film tells the tale of traditions, their defiance, their reliance, and their changing, as well as the interconnected communities that the river feeds. It's also, like most stories, a bit about love, but unlike the previously lamented tacked on love stories, these are naturally fitting tales--the marriage traditions, courtship traditions, and religious traditions central to these communities derive from and dictate the relationships that are the basis of the communities.

  It's hard to talk about this film without discussing its ending, and rather than try or spoiler-lock this, I'm just going to say that it really drives home the central metaphor. It comes close to being too much, but I think it works because it's a poetic image all on its own.

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  Review by SupremeLemon (지존레몬) ★★★ 3

  Friendship ended with SATYAJIT RAY

  Now
  RITWIK GHATAK
  is my
  best friend

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  Review by 🐱Andrew Chrzanowski🐱 ★★★★ 4

  ☆"Will you ever understand how deep my river of pain is?"☆

  Martin Scorsese's "World Cinema Project" collection -- film #3 of 24

  Yesterday I watched what many claim was the first "neorealist" film, Fred Zinnemann's and Emilio Gómez Muriel's Redes. Tonight takes me to one of the earliest "hyperlink" films -- the interconnected narrative style popularized by Robert Altman and later tweaked by Paul Thomas Anderson and Alejandro González Iñárritu -- Ritwik Ghatak's underseen Bengali gem Titas Ekti Nadir Naam ["A River Called Titas"]. This patient story of Bangladeshi fishermen, their families, and the ties that bind a community is also unquestionably beautiful in its meditative portrait of a generation of triumphs and tragedies.

  Scorsese calls the film "visually and…

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  Review by Rawaf ★★★★½

  وكأن جميع ما صنعه ريتويك غاتاك كان جزءً لا يتجزأ من نهر تيتاس 
   ينتج العواطف ويحيكها من على ظهر القرية الممتدة على طول النهر الذي كان بمثابة أيدٍ خفية تحمل في أعماقها الأرواح الضائعة والمكسوة بالذكريات لو كنت سأتحدث عن ما شاهدته سأكون مبتذلة في روايتهِ ، أود فقط صيد الأسماك برفقة نهر تيتاس أريد أن أحمل معه جزءً مما يثقله سيكون طفلًا لي أسبحُ بخفتهِ  بسلمهِ و وفرته 
  أشعر ببعض الحنين بعد إنتهائي وكأنه قد جفّ وانا لازلت ارتوي

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  Review by maneleeo ★★★★

  There's something extraordinary about this film which I had never heard about. The way the story is presente to us is nothing short of a poetic and beautiful. The way faces are captured speak to my innermost emotions, it's like saying the complete representation of a human soul. It isn't simply about composition of the image and the acting, it's something amost innate to what these elements in combination with the story have.

  Along the shore of river Titas, lies a story of love, stories of poverty, stories about every single one living around it seen through a small scope that can easily be transported to the whole population. It's a sad and melancholic film, but frankly, I wouldn't want such a film to be any other way.

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  Review by Jaime Rebanal ★★★★★

  Might very well be Ritwik Ghatak's best film from what I've seen thus far; there's never a moment that feels wasted but in how he depicts an economic struggle revolving around the area, it's a film that always remains ever so beautiful. But the way in which Ghatak establishes the titular river as a metaphor for how the lives for these people will turn out within the passing of time, A River Called Titas only ever turns for the more heartbreaking.

  I can already imagine that Ghatak might be a favourite within due time - and once I see more of his works. Here's to hoping that more will be readily available.

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  Review by Cediii ★½

  upcoming foregin watches 🌎

  These may be cultural relativity. But filmmaking should not be dependent so much on it, especially its technical aspects. I have hardly ever seen a worse photography, a worse soundtrack. When the scenery consists of a talking group of people, we see them occupying the lower third of the frame, the lower limb cut off. About half of the frame is filled by the sky! No sort of surrealism or experimentation or exxageration.

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  Review by AntoniusBlock7 ★★★½ 5

  “I miss my daughter. She left yesterday. My last dear one. She was all I had. My only daughter. That’s the way it happens. It all comes and then disappears again. There’s a spark of life. And suddenly it’s not there. It all becomes untraceable. You were a child yesterday. Today you’re a woman. This ever-flowing river Titas may become bone dry tomorrow. It may not even have the last drop without which our soul cannot depart. Yet these flocks of sails move on and on and on…”

  Taken at face value, this film comes across as a long melodrama, and a pretty damn contrived one at that. A couple of young men go out fishing with their uncle, and…

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  Review by Ali ★★★★½

  البطولة المُطلقة من نصيب النهر تيتاس حيث كان له التأثير المباشر على حياة القاطنين على ضفافة من مأسي 
  
  
  تحفة أخرى من البنغالي ريتويك جاتاك من بعد “النجم المغطى بالغيوم“

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  Review by Michael Stuhlman ★★★★ 1

  It could be a tad on the nose at times, and it's length doesn't do it any favors with stretches of truly slow material. On the other hand Titas feels like such a precursor to films like Nashville and Magnolia that it's impossible to ignore. The film focuses on several lives along the River Titas and spans some ten years. Like those two aforementioned films, who use a concert and a game show as their respective through lines. A River Called Titas is, as you probably guessed, all brought together by the titular river. As the lives of the characters degrade, so to does the river Titas, and while this metaphor can get a little carried away at times, it…