The River

The River

Frank Borzage, USA, 1929

Comment

In this extract, the cold is not only a sensory issue, linked to apocalyptic weather, it is also a scenic argument.

In a landscape distorted by a blizzard, a man carries a body on his back. Inside, a woman sleeps, wrapped in a fur coat. He puts down an inanimate young man, the violence of the gusts of wind pushes a cloud of snowflakes inside, underlining the precariousness of the situation to which the characters are subjected: the hut is the only refuge in this hostile universe where resistance to the cold is a relentless struggle, and above all a question of survival. At first petrified, the woman joins his desperate efforts to revive him. As the storm rages outside, they rush into the heart of danger to gather handfuls of snow to attempt to bring the unfortunate man back to life, exhausting themselves in a frenzy of gestures and actions that seem to have no effect. As the man, discouraged, is on the verge of giving up, the camera refocuses on the woman who deploys all her strength to encourage him to continue. This unconscious young man is none other than the one she pushed away a few hours earlier. Madly in love and desperate for her unyielding refusal, he had thrown himself bare-chested into the storm. The fear of having lost him for good, the vision of the young man's inert, ice-covered body awakens the passion she had repressed, and triggers her confession. While through the window we see the storm raging, in a scene of rare sensuality for the time, it is at the touch of her skin that the young man comes back to life, presaged with shots of vigorous massages on the boy's bare chest. After a short hesitation, the young woman undresses and slides against her beloved, whom she tries to revive with her caresses. The rescue scene, a classic of the disaster movie genre, is transformed into a love scene of great erotic power, in which genres are turned upside down, transforming a vigorous young man into an unexpected Snow White.