Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageBig River Man (2009)
Director: John Maringouin
Movie review
From Time Out London
If Werner Herzog had made ‘Borat’, the results might have been something like this documentary about the unusual athletic overachiever Martin Strel. Imagine a man who has swum the length of the Danube, Mississippi and Yangtze rivers and you’re unlikely to picture Strel, an overweight, fiftysomething Slovenian with penchants for horseburgers, drunk-driving and, when occasion demands, wiring his head up to batteries. But here he is, preparing to swim the Amazon, aided by his son Borut and American amateur navigator Matthew Mohlke.As the 70 days of the attempt unfold, Strel emerges as less exotic curio or eco-campaigner (despite the film’s attempts to frame him as such) than genuinely Herzogian obsessive, compelled to seek both unity with and mastery over nature. The film never truly gets a handle on the relationship between Strel and his long-suffering son, who delivers the pleasingly bathetic narration, but that dynamic is of less interest than the monomaniacal yet inspirational behaviour of Strel, a man indifferent to his own health and rejected by Amazonian locals as a demonic ‘pishtaco’.
Author: Ben Walters
Time Out London Issue 2037: 3 - 9 September, 2009
Cast & crew
Director: John Maringouin
Genre(s): Documentaries
Rated: 15
Duration: 100 mins
UK Release: Sep 4 2009
US Release: Dec 4 2009
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
The 10 worst date movies
Just in time for Valentine's Day, we present ten of the least romantic films ever made
Where to watch this year's Oscar-nominated films
Find out where to watch 2012's Oscar-nominated films in London cinemas
10 unlikely badboy biopics
Featuring Phil Collins, Jeremy Clarkson, Nick Clegg, David Starkey and a host of other unlikely subjects
Interview: Sean Durkin on 'Martha Marcy May Marlene'
The first-time director of the brilliant new thriller discusses religious cults and robot boxing
Has David Cronenberg turned tame?
Has director David Cronenberg veered too far from his radical and bloody roots with new film 'A Dangerous Method'?
Pop-up cinema for Valentine's Day
Side-step romantic clichés with some alternative Valentine’s viewing
What do you think?
Post your review now