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river's edge: better film with roughly similar central idea?

posted 16 years ago by emncaity
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Somebody's probably said this before--sorry, no time to go check through all the posts--but the 1986 film River's Edge has a similar event at its center, and probably most people would consider it a superior film. I haven't seen it since around the time it was released on video (1988 or so), so maybe it would seem dated now, or there may be flaws I wouldn't have seen then that I would see now. So I don't want to guarantee anybody a perfect viewing experience or anything, but as I remember it, it was really worth the two hours--if something that profoundly disturbing can be "worth it."

It's also true that River's Edge has a somewhat different thematic context--mostly amoral and aimless youth *beep* which obviously alters the perception of the meaning of the central plot event, which in Jindabyne depends specifically on how normal families in a normal town perceive this seemingly disturbing act. In River's Edge, the point isn't how the town perceives it, but rather the fact that these kids would do what they did even when they knew the girl.

Anyway, if memory serves, that's a film worth seeing. I think it'll provide a fairly interesting comparison with Jindabyne, which I think is a flawed film (what film isn't) that is at least mildly disappointing in some respects.

[–] babatjie 16 years ago

I disagree. This movie is slow-paced and thoughtful, and should not be judged against plot-driven movies, or crime dramas. River's Edge is about how casual, how numbed, a group of teenagers can be about a murder--an unquestionably brutal act--even when the victim is from their own circle, and how accepting they are of the murderer in their midst. It is more sensational than insightful; it doesn't help us get inside their heads so much as it shows us their lack of moral compass and leaves us to marvel at it.

Jindabyne's focus is not on the murder at all. It is about the men who choose to delay reporting it, and the fact that this is not so clearly a terrible act is what makes it interesting. We can understand how the characters rationalize their choices, but then we also understand the subsequent angry reactions of the community. As we get to know the characters, we find that almost all of them have something in their lives (post-partum depression, bisexuality, lack of affection for a grandchild) that they find perfectly defensible but for which, they discover, those close to them are judging them. And many of these prejudices and value judgements surface as they confront the incident.

I understand that it might not appeal to those who wanted another River's Edge, but this is excellent in terms of cinematography, soundtrack, acting, and the opportunity to empathize with the characters and contemplate our own ambivalence about the issues of responsibility and community that it raises.

[–] emncaity 16 years ago

I'd agree that River's Edge probably is more about the fact of adolescent amorality and group psychology, without much interiority--not a lot of delving into motivations and so forth. But then, I'm not sure Jindabyne goes too deeply into motivations, either. After the fact, people project their own significance onto the event and it becomes fuel for whatever angle they have on it, which is one distinction from River's Edge, for sure. Another point of distinction, I think, is that in Jindabyne these aren't aimless idiot adolescents; these guys have meaningful lives, which makes their decision not to do anything even more disturbing.

Still, I do think there are some strong similarities thematically, not least of which is an examination of social psychology--how these people behave in a group and do things they probably wouldn't have done if phenomena such as diffusion of responsibility weren't at work.

I'm not sure the focus of River's Edge is on the murder all that much more than it is in Jindabyne. It's true that you do get more of a description, you know some of the details, etc. But it seems to me the attention in both films is on the reaction to the death rather than the death itself.

The big difference, to me, is that in Jindabyne there's the understanding among the characters that they should've handled the incident differently; there's almost a self-awareness that they did something wrong, whether marginally or drastically; there's a sense of trying to assemble retroactively a rationale for how they acted (another tenet of social psychology, by the way), like even they aren't quite sure why they did what they did. To me, at least, you don't get the same sense of a completely black void where a soul and a conscience ought to be, as you do in River's Edge--or at least that's my recollection of it. I really need to back and see that film again now. It must be close to 20 years.

At any rate, I certainly wasn't "looking for another River's Edge" at all; it's just that when I watched Jindabyne, certain elements seemed really similar to those in River's Edge. Also, maybe because of high expectations, maybe because I'm a huge fan of Aussie film in general and had seen trailers that left me dying to see Jindabyne, I thought it was mildly disappointing (although I'd still recommend it), and I remember River's Edge as leaving a real mark. But I'm also comparing a recent film (which had my hopes sky-high) with one I haven't seen for a couple of decades (and may not have been as good as I remember it). Certainly wouldn't be the first time I saw some film again after many years and wondered what I ever thought was so outstanding about it the first time around.