Boatman (1996)

The boatman is an account of a boat trip between Gianfranco Rosi and his helmsman, Gopal, on the Ganges. They pass tourists and Indians who are bathing, working or meditating. Rosi uses a series of small portraits to depict life on both sides of the Holy River in India. The central theme of the film is the imagination of the endless cycle of life and death, which is rooted in the lives of the Indian people and convincingly reflected in the way they bid farewell to the dead.