What a contradiction: there is both so much and so little here. Scorsese loves it. It’s co-written (adapted from Rumer Godden’s book) and directed by Jean Renoir – whose Grand Illusion and Boudu I own and absolutely love. And it was his first film in Technicolor, shot entirely on location in India, with all its bright, bursting, colorful possibilities. I expected to love it.

But the story and the acting here are both awful. There’s unfortunately really no other word for it. Most synopses seem to suggest that it’s a story about a young woman’s crush on a much older, American World War II veteran – both her awakening to the idea of love, and her early adolescent frustrations and disappointments with it. More accurately, it’s about that young woman’s coming of age, as she attempts to jump headfirst into love, life, and artistic immortality (and their opposites – heartbreak, death and the impassive, destructive transience of existence, symbolized by the ever-flowing Ganges).

O Criterion, where art thou? Mr. Hulot’s Holiday, Mon Oncle, and Playtime have all been given the treatment, but this little gem is left out in the cold. And it has such an interesting history, I can already envision the two-disc package: first disc is the original color version of the film (done in "Thomson-color," a process that was done in before the actual film was shown), disc two the black and white (with hand-drawn colorized touches by Tati himself). Both would have commentary from a biographer, film history expert, or scholar of slapstick physical comedy, documentaries about Tati’s early career and impact, and silent film shorts as well as modern day examples to draw parallels and place this kind of comedic brilliance in historical perspective.

I don’t know, I’d buy it. Instead, we have some jankety Australian version that won’t even play in my DVD player. Or, my downloaded copy of the black and white version that didn’t even have subtitles.