Big River Man is a 2009 documentary film

Documentary film

Documentary films constitute a broad category of nonfictional motion pictures intended to document some aspect of reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction or maintaining a historical record...

 directed by John Maringouin

John Maringouin

John Maringouin is an American film director.His debut feature, Running Stumbled, received wide critical acclaim and was referred to by Variety as a "phantasmagoric filmmaking debut" Despite acclaim, a Spirit Award nomination, and a brief release in the UK, the film is unavailable in the United...

. It follows the Slovenian long-distance swimmer

Long-distance swimming

The distances that distinguish long distance swimming from ordinary swimming are those distances that are longer than are typically swum in pool competitions. When a given swim calls more on endurance than outright speed, the more likely it is to be considered a long distance swim...

 Martin Strel

Martin Strel

Martin Strel in Mokronog, SFR Yugoslavia, is a legendary Slovenian long-distance swimmer, best known for swimming the entire length of various rivers. Strel holds successive Guinness World Records for swimming the Danube river, the Mississippi River, the Yangtze River, and the Amazon River....

 as he swims the entire 3,300 mile length of the Amazon River

Amazon River

The Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined...

, between February and April 2007.

The film was nominated for the grand Jury Prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival

2009 Sundance Film Festival

The 2009 Sundance Film Festival ran from January 15, 2009 until January 25 in Park City, Utah. It was the 25th iteration of the Sundance Film Festival.-Award winners:*Grand Jury Prize: Documentary - We Live in Public...

 and won the Excellence in Cinematography Award (Maringouin also shot the film). It is being distributed by Revolver Entertainment

Revolver Entertainment

Revolver Entertainment is a marketing-lead, all rights film distribution company. Founded in 1997, the company has operations in both London and Los Angeles....

 and the Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel

Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...

.

Reception

The film has been almost universally praised, achieving a score of 96% by Rotten Tomatoes and 100% score by the top critics, as well as a score of 67 from Metacritic

Metacritic

Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...

 indicating generally favorable reviews. Critics praised the humor and story telling of the documentary and many compared it to a Werner Herzog documentary. One negative review came from Anthony Quinn of Independent, who called the on-screen chronicle of the swim "fuzzy and flaky", others have also questioned whether parts of the documentary are real or not.

Soundtrack score

2m1 Records recently released the soundtrack score at the beginning of 2011. In the liner notes, 2m1 Records states: "Rich Ragsdale's wonderful musical achievement defines Martin Strel

Martin Strel

Martin Strel in Mokronog, SFR Yugoslavia, is a legendary Slovenian long-distance swimmer, best known for swimming the entire length of various rivers. Strel holds successive Guinness World Records for swimming the Danube river, the Mississippi River, the Yangtze River, and the Amazon River....

 and his comedic yet serious struggle in swimming 3,300 miles down the Amazon

Amazon River

The Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined...

. Going from a Pendereckian aesthetic to even post-rock and orchestral minimalism, this score is contagious in its ability to take you on a comedic yet dark subconscious emotional journey of Big River Man's eclectic protagonist." In association with KNR Productions and Producer Andrew P. Alderete, 2m1 released this album through iTunes

ITunes

iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

 and Amazon

Amazon.com

Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...

.

Tracklist:

01 - Big River Polka

02 - Amazon on the Horizon

03 - Amazon Fires

04 - Day Two

05 - The Amazon

06 - Transition I

07 - Night Swim

08 - Nasty Feet

09 - Amazon on the Horizon (Extended)

10 - Martin's Solace (Short)

11 - No More Penis (Candiru Fish)

12 - Transition II

13 - Brazil (with Drone)

14 - Psych Tunnel (Sundance Cut)

15 - Yangtze

16 - The Boat Crash

17 - Kevin Ragsdale & Rich Ragsdale - Amazon Guitar Transition

18 - Second Night Swim

19 - River Demon

20 - Beginning of a Superhero

21 - Martin's Solace (Complete)

22 - Martin, The Last Superhero (Ending Cue)

23 - Fourth Dimension

24 - Martin's Solace (Accordion Version)

25 - The Amazon (Unused Piano Mix)

26 - Last Night Swim

27 - The Last Superhero (Unused Alternate)

28 - The Amazon (Unused Original Demo)

29 - 69 Days (Unused)

30 - I'm Fine (Unused)

31 - A.E.R. (Bonus Track)

Composed & Conducted: Rich Ragsdale

Producers: Andrew P. Alderete, Rich Ragsdale, Jeff Johns

Executive Album Producer: Andrew P. Alderete

Catalogue Number: 2M1-1006

Release Date: 01/04/2011

External links

• Big River Man at Metacritic
  Metacritic
  Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
  
  
• Big River Man Soundtrack Score at 2m1 Records
• Big River Man at KNR Productions, Inc.