A River Below

The intoxicating A River Below contains elements of immersive nature documentaries and shocking wildlife exposes (like Blackfish and The Cove), but director Mark Grieco’s profile of two driven conservationists tells a more slippery tale.

Director Mark Grieco grabs our attention by going beyond the obvious. Exploring the consequences of well-intentioned actions and providing a sense of the much bigger picture transforms A River Below into an unexpectedly compelling proposition.

Vividly photographed by René Diaz and adroitly edited by Dan Swietlik, A River Below skillfully — and quite compellingly — navigates the murky complexities of contemporary reality filmmaking.

The truth turns into a tangled mess in A River Below, a bold and urgent documentary whose seemingly straightforward story quickly runs awry.

Unintentionally timely, A River Below may be read as a Trump-era document, a tale of environmentalists versus local industry.

In the stories of both men, Grieco’s film highlights the double-edged nature of eye-opening visuals, which are just as apt to enrage others and endanger the messenger as they are to achieve noble ends.

A River Below is pure investigative journalism.