REVIEWS FILM

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The River” a short film directed by Suramya is a film following a story of a woman who is an avid painter, but appears to have lost all sense of motivation and confidence in herself to complete her unfinished painting. A nude woman, comes to be visible in front of our main character sometimes, but actually does not appear to be a real entity, because they never interact and mostly its like she sees right through her.

Sometimes, she is smoking a cigarette, while the nude woman is sitting right in front of her, but our character appears to have no reaction towards it as there is nobody there. The film continues to show us these visuals while she talks to her mother on a daily basis too. Things start off extremely slow but start becoming clearer as we move ahead.

One day, she goes out to get some daily necessities off from the market, where the shopkeeper gives her nasty looks from her approach and when she is going to pay for the products, he holds her hand forcefully, molesting her in a public area, which is finally broken up due to a kid entering the scene. She leaves for her home again as we are visualized with the monochromatic background again.

The camera angles and the monochromatic tone sets a beautiful touch to the film. The nude woman appears to hide in the dark spots of the scene, where she becomes extremely less visible or camouflages to the area and that is shown beautifully.

The film ends with her finally finishing her painting for a constant twenty-four hours, all the viewers realizing it was the nude woman she was painting, and that is why we could see her haunts all around the film. The woman in conclusion appears to be lying on the bed with no signs of life in her, as a water guy keeps ringing the bell of her flat, but she does not react to it, considering us to believe she has died a tragic death.