Film Forum

U.S., 2003
Directed by Robb Moss
Approx 78 min. 

In the 1970s, Robb Moss worked as a guide along the Colorado River, living a communal, idyllic (often naked) existence with friends. The breathtaking Grand Canyon is the setting for Moss’ utopian record of what it’s like to be in one’s 20s, in robust health, with a gorgeous body, surrounded by friends and lovers whose biggest problem is deciding whether to break camp or spend one more glorious day right where they are. Cut to several decades later: Moss is now a filmmaker on the Harvard faculty; his friends are married (and divorced), raising children, caring for elderly parents, earning a living as writers, small-town mayors, and in one case as an aerobics instructor. They’ve transformed into fully-dressed, middle-class, middle-aged people. It is the brilliance of this film to telescope those intervening years: Barry, Jeff, Cathy, Jim, and Danny aren’t just older; they’re also more reflective and smarter, funnier and more accomplished. Moss looks deeply at the particular and finds the universal.
 
All five characters are revisited over 20 years later in Robb Moss’ new film, THE BEND IN THE RIVER, concluding his “river film” trilogy. 

Reviews

“A piercingly poignant then-and-now portrait of five friends who worked as summer guides on the Colorado River in the 1970’s... so palpable it puts a lump in your throat.”
– Stephen Holden, The New York Times
 
“Powerful... Compelling... Graceful... Part of what makes THE SAME RIVER TWICE great is its highly selective and shaped methods of portraying the individuals, almost as if they were fictional creations. The way in which the present gradually overtakes the past in this film is more evidence of Moss’ flawless sense of narrative construction.”
– Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
 
“Beguiling, lyrical portrait of idealism and adulthood.”
– Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine
 
“Graceful... Fluid and loose... THE SAME RIVER TWICE will exert the same alluring pull as Michael Apted’s 7 UP and other where-are-they-now investigations into the passage of real lives.”
– Ella Taylor, LA Weekly
 
“It's a generous document of cultural passage, and not incidentally, the sexiest naturally nudist American movie since Murnau’s TABU.”
– Michael Atkinson, The Village Voice
 
“Other documentaries have crisscrossed between time frames, but Moss’ beguiling THE SAME RIVER TWICE represents one of the most effective uses of the device.”
– Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
 
“An elegy, an allegory, and one hell of a beautiful film.”
– Walter Chaw, Film Freak Central

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