Apart from the beautiful imagery thanks to New Zealand cinematographer Alun Bollinger, this film is not worth seeing.
The storyline is so fragmented and lost that it's hard to know what is going on at any given time, and just when you think you're following then the direction changes again, like a lost bi-polar puppy dog.
The musical score is awful, relying too heavily on extremely emotive pieces that try to force the audience into feeling a certain way, as if the instruments were acting as an emotions queue sheet 'feel sad here'; 'feel shocked here'; 'feel scared here'. On top of that, the repetitive samples used over and over again leave the audience on the verge of laughter.
Gone are the days of silent film, where musical instruments were the sole portrayal of voice but you wouldn't think so while watching River Queen.
The voice-over was so over-utilised that one has to wonder if this film really even needed any accompanying imagery. It could have easily been a radio play although even then it would be hard to follow the story.
And the stolen ideas from Jane Campion's The Piano are too obvious to overlook. Not only are the beach and forest shots almost identical to those in The Piano perhaps some of this comes down to Alun Bollinger's camera work on the latter but the voice-over feeling and levels too are strikingly close. And who could forget when Holly Hunter's character has her wings clipped, in the form of her index finger being cut off by Sam Neill. Does it remind you of when Wiremu has his 'trigger finger' amputated, and surprisingly too with an axe? I thought so.
All in all I cannot recommend this film for viewing, unless you wear some ear-muffs and just go with the scenery in mind.
The storyline is so fragmented and lost that it's hard to know what is going on at any given time, and just when you think you're following then the direction changes again, like a lost bi-polar puppy dog.
The musical score is awful, relying too heavily on extremely emotive pieces that try to force the audience into feeling a certain way, as if the instruments were acting as an emotions queue sheet 'feel sad here'; 'feel shocked here'; 'feel scared here'. On top of that, the repetitive samples used over and over again leave the audience on the verge of laughter.
Gone are the days of silent film, where musical instruments were the sole portrayal of voice but you wouldn't think so while watching River Queen.
The voice-over was so over-utilised that one has to wonder if this film really even needed any accompanying imagery. It could have easily been a radio play although even then it would be hard to follow the story.
And the stolen ideas from Jane Campion's The Piano are too obvious to overlook. Not only are the beach and forest shots almost identical to those in The Piano perhaps some of this comes down to Alun Bollinger's camera work on the latter but the voice-over feeling and levels too are strikingly close. And who could forget when Holly Hunter's character has her wings clipped, in the form of her index finger being cut off by Sam Neill. Does it remind you of when Wiremu has his 'trigger finger' amputated, and surprisingly too with an axe? I thought so.
All in all I cannot recommend this film for viewing, unless you wear some ear-muffs and just go with the scenery in mind.