Blu-ray Review: SWAMP WATER

To cinephiles, Jean Renoir is best known for his early French films. His comedy of manners, Rules of the Game, is among the best loved films of the 20th century. However, like most popular European directors, Renoir eventually made his way to Hollywood in an effort to both escape the escalating political situation in France as well as to take advantage of America's bigger budgets and grander scope. The first product of Renoir's Hollywood career was 1941's backwoods noir, Swamp Water.

The film tells the story of Ben (Dana Andrews), a young man who loses his dog in the deep dark of the Okefenokee Swamp in Florida. He tussles with his old man Thursday (Walter Huston), who forbids him to traipse off into the swamp that sees very few people return. Ben disobeys and runs off to find his dog, Trouble. In the swamp, Ben runs into Tom Keefer (Walter Brennan), as escaped convict who's fled the noose and found a perfect hiding place in the swamp where the law doesn't dare to tread. They clash, make up, and eventually form a business partnership that puts Ben on very unsteady ground as his attempts to hide the source of his Okefenokee furs.

What follows is one increasingly violent and sinister plot device after another, as Ben's girl leaves him and gets him into deep trouble. The film plays sort of like a soap opera, but one soaked in Southern swamp culture.  This isn't the southern gothic that we're most accustomed to, this is the rural America at the turn of the 20th century. Each character can almost be reduced to his basest instincts in his actions at the flick of a switch. When Ben finds himself in the middle of a conspiracy, the only way out is to bring Tom Keefer out of the swamp, but will either of them make it out alive?

The thing that I find most fascinating about Swamp Water is Renoir's decision to adapt this particular story for the screen. The characters in this film are so uniquely American, that I can't help but think that part of his goal was to test himself and use this exotic setting to try something truly different. The result is a somewhat strange film that, at time, feels more like a stage play than a film. However, the casting of the Walters Huston and Brennan brings the action back to Earth, and helps to create the homey feel of Swamp Water, even when Mary Howard, as Thursday's wife, over enunciates her Southern drawl.

Swamp Water's release in 1941 came right at the beginning of the film noir explosion, and though the film may not fit all of the criteria, it certainly has a connection to those films. Dana Andrews became a staple of the film noir genre, and the stark monochromatic cinematography of the film was among film noir's strongest identifying features. The film's overplays it's drama on occasion, but with characters as rich as Walter Brennan's Tom Keefer, and Walter Huston's incredibly understated but true to life take on Thursday Ragan, it all works out.

Renoir does his best to incorporate every stereotypical backwoods hillbilly character he can into Swamp Water. Though it may sound tiresome, the film actually has a lot going on, and the plot moves quite quickly. This is definitely a film of it's time, though, and like many films from the era, it ends rather abruptly once it hits the ninety minute mark.  Though, in a way, I kind of miss that sort of focus in these days when film denouements can last forty minute or more. Swamp Water is certainly the work of a man who knew what he was doing, it's certainly not Renoir's best film, but for a first feature in a foreign language, it's damned solid.

The Disc:

As usual, Twilight Time brings us this limited edition of Swamp Water on Blu-ray in fine condition. There is moderate print damage, but nothing too distracting. The image sports a reasonable level of grain, though it lacks the fine detail of later era black and white features. Not a fault of the film transfer, I wouldn't imagine, probably more to do with the production and materials available. The audio is also crystal clear, and Twilight Time have included their trademark isolated score track, which sounds very nice, even when used as sparsely as it is in Swamp Water.

The only extra is another remarkable essay from Twilight Time's in house historian, Julie Kirgo.  Kirgo is quickly becoming one of my favorite film writers.  There are times when reading through these essays and clips for films can certainly be trying, but Kirgo's essays are fantastic in that she typically finds some really great angles to explore that help to open up the film to interpretation and illuminate aspects of the subtext and production that really lend themselves to further investigation, and this is no different. 

Another great disc, keep 'em coming, Twilight Time!