Before the Rains
Encyclopedia
Before the Rains is a 2007 India
n-British
period drama film directed by Santosh Sivan
. The film adapted of a story from the 2001 anthology
Israeli
film Asphalt Zahov
.
It was filmed on location in Kerala
, India
and was released in cinemas in India, the US and the UK.
of the Madras Presidency
of British India
, against the backdrop of a growing nationalist movement. An idealistic young Indian man, T.K. (Rahul Bose
) finds himself torn between his ambitions for the future and his loyalty to tradition when people in his village learn of an affair between his British boss and close friend Henry Moores (Linus Roache
) and a married village woman Sajani (Nandita Das
). In this play Henry and T.K. are working on building a road in rural Kerala. The start of the film focuses on the affair between Henry and his house maid Sajani. They make love near a waterfall, but two kids see them and on hearing a noise, they flee. Both Henry and his maid are married to different partners and both know of each other's marriages. Henry's wife and son return from their vacation in England. Sajani is distraught but Henry calms her saying that she is the one he loves. Sajani's violent husband finds out about her infidelity and brutally beats her. Sajani flees to Henry's house; Henry instructs T.K. to take her away into hiding. T.K tells Sajani never to come back as she is now disgraced and her being in the village will endanger Henry's life. Sajani does not believe T.K but leaves nonetheless. During this time, resentment towards the British grows stronger and they do not want to make things worse by having news about an adulterous act between an Indian woman and a British man.
Sajani's love for Henry drives her back to Henry's house. Sajani is told to leave. Henry lies that he does not love her. A distraught Sajani finds T.K's handgun which was a gift from Henry and shoots herself in the chest and dies. T.K. and Henry take her body and throw it in a body of water, since their lives were at risk if people found out about what happened.
Sajani's disappearance garners interest in the village. Sajani's brother and husband gather the men of the village to search the jungle for Sajani. The same 2 kids who discovered Sajani and Henry near the water fall, discover her body. On examining the body it was found that a bullet from an English pistol killed her. A mob led by Sajani's husband attack T.K. who is the only Indian man around with a handgun. The bullet and the handgun match and T.K is tried by the village council for murder. T.K was forced to tell the truth to the council, while Henry's wife discovers that her husband is the one responsible for everything and leaves her husband to return to England.
T.K proves his innocence to the council in a test by fire. The council elders tell T.K. that he has to kill Henry to get his honour back since he aided and abetted in covering up a killing. Sajani's brother and T.K. go to kill Henry. When it comes to the moment for T.K to kill Henry, he cannot pull the trigger but instead tells Henry, that no man owns anything, it belongs to everyone. The film ends with the onset of the monsoon. Henry and T.K's road holds and does not yield to the pouring rains.
introduced him to the film. Concluding that the story was "timeless and universal", Sivan changed the story's setting to a Nayar
community in 1930s Kerala
, India. He felt a special affinity with the area as he was born and raised in Kerala.
During the 33-day shoot, Sivan endeavoured to capture the feel of cinematographer Subrata Mitra
. He used mainly 16mm and 18mm lenses to achieve the film's panoramic wide shots which he recorded in 1.85:1 aspect ratio
on Kodak Vision2 film stock
. He was also inspired by the work of artist Raja Ravi Varma
for the interiors, particularly in the use of lighting. The costume department dressed the principal characters in contrasting colours to highlight their differing backgrounds; Moores was dressed in muted colours while Sanjani wore bright sari
s and jewellery.
Several complications were involved in filming in the area. Since much of the film involves road construction, the production team found an abandoned road and completed it at different stages in three different areas to allow them to shoot all three building stages simultaneously. For one scene Das's character was supposed to float down a river. The water proved to be too cold, so the crew had to set up a large tub of warm water next to the river for the close-up.
. It was also screened at Pittsburgh's Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival
, the Tribeca Film Festival
, and the Palm Springs International Film Festival
. It was released commercially in India on 14 August 2009.
giving it an average rating of 5.2 and Metacritic
giving it a 47/100 rating. Sivan's camera work was widely praised. The lead actors' performances, especially that of Rahul Bose was also applauded. The predominant thread of criticism in most of the reviews were that the film stuck to an old-school format and failed to stir emotion or engage the viewer.
who was nominated for a Discovery of the Year
award at the 2008 World Soundtrack Awards for his work on the film. It has some Carnatic
songs as well that feature Indian percussionist Sivamani
.
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n-British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
period drama film directed by Santosh Sivan
Santosh Sivan
Santosh Sivan is an Indian cinematographer, film director, and producer who has worked in Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, and Hindi cinema....
. The film adapted of a story from the 2001 anthology
Anthology film
An anthology film is a feature film consisting of several different short films, often tied together by only a single theme, premise, or brief interlocking event . Sometimes each one is directed by a different director...
Israeli
Cinema of Israel
Cinema of Israel refers to movie production in Israel since its founding in 1948. Most Israeli films are produced in Hebrew. Israel has been nominated for more Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film than any other country in the Middle East....
film Asphalt Zahov
Yellow Asphalt
Yellow Asphalt is an Israeli movie depicting Jahalin Bedouins and their way of life, specifically their conflict with Israeli Jews. The film is a pastiche of three short stories depicted sequentially:...
.
It was filmed on location in Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and was released in cinemas in India, the US and the UK.
Plot
Before the Rains is set in 1930s Malabar DistrictMalabar District
Malabar District was an administrative district of Madras Presidency in British India and independent India's Madras State. The British district included the present-day districts of Kannur, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Malappuram, Palakkad , and Chavakad Taluk of Thrissur District in the northern part of...
of the Madras Presidency
Madras Presidency
The Madras Presidency , officially the Presidency of Fort St. George and also known as Madras Province, was an administrative subdivision of British India...
of British India
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
, against the backdrop of a growing nationalist movement. An idealistic young Indian man, T.K. (Rahul Bose
Rahul Bose
Rahul Bose is an Indian actor, screenwriter, director, social activist, and rugby union player.Bose has appeared in Hindi films such as Pyaar Ke Side Effects and Jhankaar Beats. Time magazine named him "the superstar of Indian arthouse cinema" for his work in parallel cinema films like English,...
) finds himself torn between his ambitions for the future and his loyalty to tradition when people in his village learn of an affair between his British boss and close friend Henry Moores (Linus Roache
Linus Roache
Linus William Roache is an English actor.-Early life:Roache was born in Manchester, the son of Coronation Street actor William Roache and actress Anna Cropper. Roache was educated at Bishop Luffa Church of England School in Chichester, West Sussex and at the independent Rydal School in Colwyn Bay,...
) and a married village woman Sajani (Nandita Das
Nandita Das
Nandita Das is an award-winning Indian film actress and director. As an actress, she is known for her performances in Fire , Earth , Bawandar , Kannathil Muthamittal and Aamaar Bhuvan . As a director, she is known for her directorial debut Firaaq , which has won a number of national and...
). In this play Henry and T.K. are working on building a road in rural Kerala. The start of the film focuses on the affair between Henry and his house maid Sajani. They make love near a waterfall, but two kids see them and on hearing a noise, they flee. Both Henry and his maid are married to different partners and both know of each other's marriages. Henry's wife and son return from their vacation in England. Sajani is distraught but Henry calms her saying that she is the one he loves. Sajani's violent husband finds out about her infidelity and brutally beats her. Sajani flees to Henry's house; Henry instructs T.K. to take her away into hiding. T.K tells Sajani never to come back as she is now disgraced and her being in the village will endanger Henry's life. Sajani does not believe T.K but leaves nonetheless. During this time, resentment towards the British grows stronger and they do not want to make things worse by having news about an adulterous act between an Indian woman and a British man.
Sajani's love for Henry drives her back to Henry's house. Sajani is told to leave. Henry lies that he does not love her. A distraught Sajani finds T.K's handgun which was a gift from Henry and shoots herself in the chest and dies. T.K. and Henry take her body and throw it in a body of water, since their lives were at risk if people found out about what happened.
Sajani's disappearance garners interest in the village. Sajani's brother and husband gather the men of the village to search the jungle for Sajani. The same 2 kids who discovered Sajani and Henry near the water fall, discover her body. On examining the body it was found that a bullet from an English pistol killed her. A mob led by Sajani's husband attack T.K. who is the only Indian man around with a handgun. The bullet and the handgun match and T.K is tried by the village council for murder. T.K was forced to tell the truth to the council, while Henry's wife discovers that her husband is the one responsible for everything and leaves her husband to return to England.
T.K proves his innocence to the council in a test by fire. The council elders tell T.K. that he has to kill Henry to get his honour back since he aided and abetted in covering up a killing. Sajani's brother and T.K. go to kill Henry. When it comes to the moment for T.K to kill Henry, he cannot pull the trigger but instead tells Henry, that no man owns anything, it belongs to everyone. The film ends with the onset of the monsoon. Henry and T.K's road holds and does not yield to the pouring rains.
Cast
- Linus RoacheLinus RoacheLinus William Roache is an English actor.-Early life:Roache was born in Manchester, the son of Coronation Street actor William Roache and actress Anna Cropper. Roache was educated at Bishop Luffa Church of England School in Chichester, West Sussex and at the independent Rydal School in Colwyn Bay,...
as Henry Moores - Nandita DasNandita DasNandita Das is an award-winning Indian film actress and director. As an actress, she is known for her performances in Fire , Earth , Bawandar , Kannathil Muthamittal and Aamaar Bhuvan . As a director, she is known for her directorial debut Firaaq , which has won a number of national and...
as Sajaani - Rahul BoseRahul BoseRahul Bose is an Indian actor, screenwriter, director, social activist, and rugby union player.Bose has appeared in Hindi films such as Pyaar Ke Side Effects and Jhankaar Beats. Time magazine named him "the superstar of Indian arthouse cinema" for his work in parallel cinema films like English,...
as T. K. Neelan - Jennifer EhleJennifer EhleJennifer Ehle is an American actress of stage and screen. She is known for her BAFTA winning role as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1995 mini-series Pride and Prejudice.-Early life:...
as Laura Moores - Leopold Benedict as Peter Moores
- Dr. Ambikathmajan as T.K.'s headmaster
- IndrajithIndrajithIndrajith is an Indian film actor. He is the elder son of late Malayalam actor Sukumaran and actress Mallika. His brother Prithviraj is also an actor...
as Manas - Lakshmi Krishnamurthy as T.K.'s mother
- LalLal (actor)Paul Michael , better known by his stage name Lal, is an Indian film director, script writer, actor, producer, and film distributor....
as Rajat - John StandingJohn StandingSir John Ronald Leon Standing, 4th Baronet is an English actor.-Early life:Standing was born John Ronald Leon in London, the son of Kay Hammond , an actress, and Sir Ronald George Leon, a stockbroker...
as Charles Humphries - ThilakanThilakanSurendranatha Thilakan , known mononymously as Thilakan, is an Indian actor who works in Malayalam cinema and theatre. He was awarded Padma Shri on 25 January 2009.- Theatre:...
as T.K.'s father - Ejji K. Umamahesh as Inspector Sampath
Production
Santosh Sivan decided to make a film of Danny Verete's segment "Red Roofs" (from Asphalt Zahov) after producer Doug MankoffDoug Mankoff
Doug Mankoff is a producer or executive producer of fifteen independent films including Thirteen Conversations About One Thing and The Big Empty....
introduced him to the film. Concluding that the story was "timeless and universal", Sivan changed the story's setting to a Nayar
Nair
Nair , also known as Nayar , refers to "not a unitary group but a named category of castes", which historically embody several castes and many subdivisions, not all of whom bore the Nair title. These people historically live in the present-day Indian state of Kerala...
community in 1930s Kerala
Kerala
or Keralam is an Indian state located on the Malabar coast of south-west India. It was created on 1 November 1956 by the States Reorganisation Act by combining various Malayalam speaking regions....
, India. He felt a special affinity with the area as he was born and raised in Kerala.
During the 33-day shoot, Sivan endeavoured to capture the feel of cinematographer Subrata Mitra
Subrata Mitra
Subrata Mitra was an Indian cinematographer. Acclaimed for his work in The Apu Trilogy , Mitra is often considered one of the greatest of Indian cinematographers....
. He used mainly 16mm and 18mm lenses to achieve the film's panoramic wide shots which he recorded in 1.85:1 aspect ratio
Aspect ratio
The aspect ratio of a shape is the ratio of its longer dimension to its shorter dimension. It may be applied to two characteristic dimensions of a three-dimensional shape, such as the ratio of the longest and shortest axis, or for symmetrical objects that are described by just two measurements,...
on Kodak Vision2 film stock
Film stock
Film stock is photographic film on which filmmaking of motion pictures are shot and reproduced. The equivalent in television production is video tape.-1889–1899:...
. He was also inspired by the work of artist Raja Ravi Varma
Raja Ravi Varma
Raja Ravi Varma was an Indian painter from the princely state of Travancore who achieved recognition for his depiction of scenes from the epics of the Mahabharata and Ramayana...
for the interiors, particularly in the use of lighting. The costume department dressed the principal characters in contrasting colours to highlight their differing backgrounds; Moores was dressed in muted colours while Sanjani wore bright sari
Sari
A sari or sareeThe name of the garment in various regional languages include: , , , , , , , , , , , , , is a strip of unstitched cloth, worn by females, ranging from four to nine metres in length that is draped over the body in various styles. It is popular in India, Bangladesh, Nepal,...
s and jewellery.
Several complications were involved in filming in the area. Since much of the film involves road construction, the production team found an abandoned road and completed it at different stages in three different areas to allow them to shoot all three building stages simultaneously. For one scene Das's character was supposed to float down a river. The water proved to be too cold, so the crew had to set up a large tub of warm water next to the river for the close-up.
Release
Before the Rains premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film FestivalToronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
. It was also screened at Pittsburgh's Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival
Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival
The Silk Screen Asian American Film Festival is a week long film festival founded in 2006 by filmmaker and artist Harish Saluja and held every May during Asian American Heritage Month in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to show mostly recent films and music by artists with Asian ethnic origins, such as...
, the Tribeca Film Festival
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Film Festival is a film festival founded in 2002 by Jane Rosenthal, Robert De Niro and Craig Hatkoff in a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the consequent loss of vitality in the TriBeCa neighborhood in Lower Manhattan.The mission of the festival...
, and the Palm Springs International Film Festival
Palm Springs International Film Festival
Palm Springs International Film Festival is a film festival held in Palm Springs, California. It was started in 1989 and is held annually in January...
. It was released commercially in India on 14 August 2009.
Reception
The film was released in both UK and US cinemas. The movie got a mixed critical reception with Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
giving it an average rating of 5.2 and Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
giving it a 47/100 rating. Sivan's camera work was widely praised. The lead actors' performances, especially that of Rahul Bose was also applauded. The predominant thread of criticism in most of the reviews were that the film stuck to an old-school format and failed to stir emotion or engage the viewer.
Soundtrack
The film's music is by Mark KilianMark Kilian
Born and raised in South Africa, Mark came to the USA to pursue a career in film scoring in 1994. His academic life in his native country and very active performing career prepared him for his enrollment into USC’s Film Scoring program...
who was nominated for a Discovery of the Year
World Soundtrack Award for Discovery of the Year
Discovery of the Year is an award handed out yearly at the World Soundtrack Awards to commemorate an excellent piece of musical work in the field of TV and movie soundtracks that seemed to come out of nowhere, hence the title of the award. It has been handed out since the World Soundtrack Awards'...
award at the 2008 World Soundtrack Awards for his work on the film. It has some Carnatic
Carnatic music
Carnatic music is a system of music commonly associated with the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, with its area roughly confined to four modern states of India: Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu...
songs as well that feature Indian percussionist Sivamani
Sivamani
Anandan Sivamani , popularly known as Sivamani, is a percussionist based in India. He plays many instruments including drums, Octoban, Darbuka, Udukai, and Kanjira, as well as many more. He performed drumming during the IPL Championships in 2008 & 2010. He is affiliated to the Chennai Super Kings...
.
- Main Titles – 3:56
- Honey Drive – 0:50
- Hand Lines – 3:41
- Funeral – 2:45
- Sacred Dragonfly – 1:34
- Sajani In Water – 3:52
- The Search Begins – 3:28
- Before The Rains – 3:46
- The Kammadan – 3:29
- Sajani's Struggle – 3:08
- Down The River – 1:02
- Did You Kill Her? – 2:27
- All Quiet – 1:21
- Chase And Standoff – 3:36
- Reminiscence – 2:21
- Feeling The Loss – 1:51
- Coming For TK – 2:21
- The Prayer – 3:29
- End Credits – 3:49
Awards
- Grand Award for Best Theatrical Feature at the 2008 WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival