Review of Ganga (1960) by Byron B — 08 Jun 2008

Good film studies academics use (overuse?) the word "problematic" for many reasons, and to describe the exoticism of Renoir's India travelogue is justifiably one of them. At the same time, Renoir's film is itself very aware of our tendency to project fantasies and desires onto other cultures and also onto each other, and to that extent it's able to deal with the issue of colonization honestly (and its "evasions" are mostly due to its being told from the point of view of a child).

All of Renoir's English-language films are awkward, but this is the least so.