''Big River Man'' is a 2009

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

directed by John Maringouin. It follows the

Slovenian Slovene or Slovenian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Slovenia, a country in Central Europe * Slovene language, a South Slavic language mainly spoken in Slovenia * Slovenes The Slovenes, also known as Slovenians ( sl, Sloven ...

long-distance swimmer Martin Strel as he swims the entire 3,300 mile length of the Amazon River, between February and April 2007. The film was nominated for the grand Jury Prize at the

2009 Sundance Film Festival The 2009 Sundance Film Festival was held during 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'' *Grand Jury Prize ...

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

Reception

The film has been almost universally praised, achieving a score of 90% by

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, as well as a score of 67 from

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

indicating generally favorable reviews. Critics praised the humor and story telling of the documentary and many compared it to a

Werner Herzog Werner Herzog (; born 5 September 1942) is a German film director, screenwriter, author, actor, and opera director, regarded as a pioneer of New German Cinema. His films often feature ambitious protagonists with impossible dreams, people with u ...

documentary. One negative review came from Anthony Quinn of Independent, who called the on-screen chronicle of the swim "fuzzy and flaky".

Soundtrack score

2m1 Records M1, M01 or M-1 may refer to: Arts, entertainment & media * WD-M01 Turn A Gundam, a mecha from the anime ''Turn A Gundam'' * M-1 (rapper), one half of hip hop duo Dead Prez * Korg M1, a keyboard synthesizer * Leica M1, a 1959 35 mm camera m ...

released the soundtrack score at the beginning of 2011. In the liner notes, 2m1 Records states: "

Rich Ragsdale Rich may refer to: Common uses * Rich, an entity possessing wealth * Rich, an intense flavor, color, sound, texture, or feeling **Rich (wine), a descriptor in wine tasting Places United States * Rich, Mississippi, an unincorporated commun ...

's wonderful musical achievement defines Martin Strel and his comedic yet serious struggle in swimming 3,300 miles down the Amazon River. 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 KNR may refer to: * Jam Airport, in Bandar Kangan, Iran; IATA airport code KNR * Kalaallit Nunaata Radioa, Greenlandic Broadcasting Corporation * Kaningra language, ISO 639-3 language code KNR * Kannur, Kerala, India; UN/LOCODE IN-KL-KNR * Kensa ...

and Producer Andrew P. Alderete, 2m1 released this album through iTunes and

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...

External links

* 2009 films American sports documentary films Films set in the Amazon 2009 documentary films Documentary films about sportspeople 2000s English-language films 2000s American films {{sport-documentary-film-stub