Even the Rain: Intriguing Meta-Cinema Ideas Undercut by Didacticism

2010 Moreno Films

Gael Garcia Bernal as Sebastian in Even the Rain.

Location Info

Map

Bill Cosford Cinema

1111 Memorial Drive
Coral Gables, FL 33146

Category: Movie Theaters

Region: Coral Gables/South Miami

Photos

1 user reviews	Write A Review

Details

Starring Gael García Bernal, Luis Tosar, and Karra Elejalde. Directed by Icíar Bollaín. Written by Paul Laverty.

Related Content

• To the Wonder Is Gorgeous, Ridiculous
  May 2, 2013
• Down the Rabbit Hole
  November 22, 2012
• War Witch Depicts the Abruptness of Atrocity
  March 28, 2013
• What You Need to Know From Sundance
  January 31, 2013
• Toronto Film Festival's Most Bracing Movies
  September 20, 2012

More About

• Columbus
• Howard Zinn
• Gael Garcia Bernal
• Terrence Malick
• Arts, Entertainment, and Media

Akin to Truffaut's Day for Night as reimagined by Howard Zinn (to whom it's dedicated), Even the Rain revolves around the Bolivia-set production of a celluloid epic about Columbus's arrival in South America, a historical tale of abuse and rebellion that dovetails with an ongoing conflict between a multinational water company and the locals who, when not performing as part of the film's cast, openly oppose it. Domestic unrest encircles the crew, which includes a bleeding-heart director (Gael García Bernal), a culturally insensitive money man (Luis Tosar), and a drunken star (Karra Elejalde), who wonders if the project — which slams the famed explorer and lionizes two 16th-century missionaries who championed equality for native Indians — is propaganda rather than art. The larger looming question is whether the film's production is guilty of the very exploitation against which its story rails, and whether the entire endeavor is masturbatory when compared with active, here-and-now struggles. It's an intriguing meta-cinema concern bolstered by solid performances. Yet with the film-within-a-film scripted sequences vainly striving for Terrence Malick-y lyricism, and the water-privatization narrative delivering moral-awakening didacticism, director Icíar Bollaín mixes Even the Rain's various storytelling modes with an obviousness that ultimately negates enlightening intellectual or emotional discovery.