Before the Rains

Yet another in a long line of films about the negative repercussions that Western industrialized entitlement and unreflective ignorance have on cinematically idealized and technologically primitive cultures, Before the Rains is a passionate film of cross-cultural difference told with minimal passion and only surface beauty. Director Santosh Sivan manages to tell the story with sincerity and energy but rigid mechanisms and an archaic structure that breeze past anything remotely emotional or truly revealing keep a powerful story caged and impotent. This is not to dismiss the film as forgettable or unworthy of viewing; on the contrary, it is something quite good that sadly, could have been much better. The beauteous cinematography and classical narrative follow Henry Moores (Linus Roache), a British spice planter and landowner living in 1937 India who has an affair with his married housemaid Sajani (Nandita Das). After the pair are spotted in a passionate embrace while collecting honey, Sajani’s husband Rajat (Lal Paul) beats the living crap out of her, which leaves Sajani running back to Henry, who is none to receptive to her plight given that his wife (Jennifer Ehle) and son (Leo Benedict) have just returned from travelling abroad. With this, he leaves his loyal assistant T.K (Rahul Bose) to deal with the issue, which leads to more unexpected problems. It’s all obliquely political in alluding to the suffering of caring and innocent Indians at the hands of steely, uncaring Brits. Included on the DVD is a commentary with actor Linus Roache and Director Santosh Sivan that is truthfully quite dry but covers the difficulties in shooting with a vast number of extras, as well as many of the traditions seen in the film and some geographical insights. It is concise and thorough but will likely appeal to only very particular fans of the film.