SLOW RETURN
Directed by Philip Cartelli
Certificate: U
☆☆☆☆☆

THE study of humankind is a rather large and catch-all description of the discipline of anthropology, a scary concept due to its impossible depth.

So it is fitting that the Royal Anthropological Institute, founded over 150 years ago, should host an annual film festival. After all, what is film but a reflection on the human condition and our place on earth? What more accessible way is there for researchers to share their ideas with as many of their subject matter – the human race – as possible?

This month, an online and in-person film festival organised by the RAI has brought in more than 80 documentary titles from around the world that the curators say sheds light on humankind in unique ways.

The range and depth is breathtaking – from a study of a boarding school in the wilds of Ontario to a 15-year project charting the lives of two brothers in Kenya, the Institute has globetrotted in selecting films.

One standout is Slow Return – a magical journey along the Rhone in France.

Director Philip Cartelli starts with the fishermen at Salin-de-Giraud on the Channel coast right up to the Alpine glacier the river springs from.

Cartelli takes the viewer on a meander, a slow-paced and searingly beautiful consideration of this landscape and how those who live on its banks have been shaped by its currents.

Running through a series of chapters, Cartelli combines careful camera work to lull you in a sense of tranquility, the womb-like sounds of water flowing, and then the sing-song French accents of those who speak of what the river means to them.

Human interventions are considered – as is the scary thought of the Rhone glacier disappearing due to the climate crisis, and what that could mean for this mighty waterway in years to come.

We are gently reminded that a river is never the same piece of water at any given point: as it flows to the sea, water molecules are in constant flux. There is something reassuringly fleeting in this story, an idea that the river has always been there somehow, but is never the same. This places humans along the Rhone in to a grander scale of time. Utterly mesmerising and glorious documentary making.

The festival is screened online, with special events taking place next weekend at the ICA in The Mall. See https://festival.raifilm.org.uk/