Screen Share | Films that pay an ode to the rains

A still from ‘Kannathil Muthamittal’
| Photo Credit: Special arrangement

An uncharacteristically wet October has seen several parts of south India swathed in heavy rainfall over the last couple of weeks, thanks to the north-east monsoon. Depending on how many power outages and building leaks you are annually subject to during this period, one’s idea of romanticising the showers might differ accordingly — but it goes without saying that filmmakers, for long, have used the phenomenon as heady motifs. 

Inexplicably, two anime features from Japanese filmmaker and novelist Makoto Shinkai (whose obsession with rain is visible in pretty much every creation from his studio) first come to mind when I think of movies that are homages to downpours. The Garden of Words depicts an almost-romance between a teenager and an older woman as they take refuge from the thunderstorms together inside a Shinjuku park, while Weathering With You’s protagonist is an orphaned girl who can control the weather at will; both coming-of-age dramas feature an inordinate number of spectacular anime rain sequences that paint Tokyo as the most magical of atmospheric escapes.

Gloomy, moody thrillers set against the backdrop of rain is a Hollywood staple, and no film encapsulates it better than David Fincher’s Se7en. The storms shut down only when John Doe surrenders and his reign ends (no? but it was right there…) Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island and Matt Reeves’ The Batman reboot are worthy additions to this list, along with several Denis Villeneuve outings like Blade Runner 2049 (Ridley Scott’s original is also a great example), Prisoners and Arrival — fans did wonder if there was going to be a rogue shot of Arrakis veiled in fog at some point in the Dune movies… but don’t fret, we still have Messiah to come. Perhaps, a fleeting mention of James Mangold’s divisive whodunit Identity is also in order here, as the entire mystery takes place around a never-ending deluge.

Korean auteur Bong Joon-Ho is another director whose usage of rains to set context — and subtext — is fascinating; in Memories of Murder, it is a harbinger of dread and doom as the cops discover a serial killer who attacks his victims whenever it rains, while in Parasite, that storm and subsequent flooding lays bare the class differences between the Kim and Park households, and brings hidden truths to the surface. The Host and Mother are two of his other films that have fun with plot points influenced by rains.

Closer home, and down south, Mani Ratnam’s Kannathil Muthamittal brims with the lush greens of Sri Lanka drenched in rain, leading to that heartbreaking climax with the family huddled under the umbrella as the strains of AR Rahman’s mesmerising Vellai Pookal takes over. Similarly, the filmmaker’s Raavanan plays out as a love letter to the waterfalls and continual rain in the jungles where the epic adventure was shot. Arivazhagan’s 2009 horror-thriller Eeram is another contender, complete with the lilting number Mazhaiye Mazhaiye.

Vishal Bhardwaj’s Kaminey, Mohit Suri’s Aashiqui 2 and Anurag Basu’s Life in a Metro all feature memorable scenes in the rains, whereas Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine as Light echoes both the charm and the chaos of Mumbai’s monsoon season. Finally, two Malayalam dramas: Dileesh Pothan’s Maheshinte Prathikaram in which the cloudy skies and impending showers parallel the state of the romance in Mahesh’s (Fahadh Faasil) life, and Padmarajan’s Thoovanathumbikal, wherein rain is the ultimate metaphor for love and passion; it pours every time Jayakrishnan (Mohanlal) meets or even thinks of the woman he is in love with.

Which prompts the thought: who doesn’t love a good rain song? But that’s a discussion for another day.

From The Hindu cinema team, a fortnightly column recommending films and shows tied to a mood, theme, or pop cultural event.