Le fleuve | The River - 1951

Harriet (Patricia Walters) is a pensive, awkward, and fanciful adolescent growing up in Bengal near the banks of the river. The eldest child of a jute factory manager (Esmond Knight), she spends most of her days writing poetry in her diary and observing life pass by over the garden walls with her attractive and self-confident friend, Valerie (Adrienne Corri), and her levelheaded, yet superstitious governess, Nan (Suprova Mukerjee). One day, the girls witness the arrival of an intriguing young man at the home of their neighbor, Mr. John (Arthur Shields), and decide to send a formal invitation to celebrate the Hindu festival of lights as an excuse to meet him. Mr. John is a humble, affable widower whose daughter Melanie (Radha) has recently graduated from a Western school. Mr. John, an Anglo-Indian, was married to a Hindu woman, and consequently, Melanie was born without caste. Now an adult, Melanie struggles to reconcile her identity as she finds herself on the periphery of both cultures, but belonging to neither.