Rain

The female director of Rain apparently used to make music videos, which show in the fine cinematography and soundtrack. The film often looks grainy and distorted, which helps to evoke a mood of hazy memories of a childhood summer vacation.

The storyline appears to borrow heavily from Satyajit Ray's 1955 classic Hindu cinema debut, Pather Panchali. But it builds upon that base admirably with the added thematic dimensions of Janey's flowering feminine beauty and her family's unfulfilling bourgeois life, all framed beautifully with the marvelous cinematography and score.

I have a hunch that in 5-10 years when all the glow comes off the other famous film trilogy from New Zealand, these three neglected feminine tales will all be viewed as superior films. Why wait for the masses, enjoy this film now!

A summer holiday at a shack of a coastal home is the principal setting for this slow moving tale of 13-year-old Janey. At first, she appears an ordinary teen ... hoping for the life of a supermodel and sneaking a drink of alcohol when mom and dad aren't watching. As the film progresses, we quickly learn that Janey is a teen coming to grips with her budding sexuality -- far faster than most her age -- thanks to the knowing extramarital daliances of her mother with a local friend. Intrigued by accidentally witnessing their forbidden kiss, Janey begins to feel the yearnings of sexual attraction. The destination it leads her, however, is one exploring the loss of far more than simple innocence.

Nearly an exercise in boredom through much of the story, RAIN juxtaposes ordinary existence with the oft-explored 'coming of age' tale with mixed results. At times, RAIN boasts some astonishingly beautiful photography (some desperately grim, some wonderfully lush), but some scenes are slightly out-of-focus (intentional?) or characters heads are completely chopped off in the 1:33:1 ratio in which it was filmed. The film sports a soundtrack that is harsh, at times, and I found myself constantly questioning the director's annoying choice of background music and incessantly long film scenes with minimal cuts. A tighter pace might've improved RAIN's inevitable lingering timing, but perhaps that isn't what the director wanted.

I suppose the greatest strength of RAIN is the second half: Janey kicks her interest in the opposite sex up several notches by titillating youth (simple kisses on the mouth) to exploring the body of a much older man (her mother's secret suitor). The man is her first lover (largely depicted in some wonderful symbolic images). Finally, the film explodes in emotion by the family coming to grips with growing old together, even though they'll never quite be the same after the events of the summer. However, by this point in the film, the drawn out cadence of the narrative didn't offer enough hooks to captivate this admirer of foreign films, delivering a little too little a little too late.

Still, RAIN isn't a bad film. It's certainly watchable, and, as a character study, one could argue that it's a purer coming of age film in contemporary society than TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD was in its day. The plot draws out like a "New York Times" notable bestseller of the week, complete with the requisite tragedy comparing the loss of innocence with the loss of life.

If there had been something new here (other than the sparkling performance of the young lead), I might've rewarded the film with higher marks. As it stands, RAIN is much like the weather: it's a bit of fun to play in at first, but, after awhile, it just feels darn cold.