In 2000, thousands of Bolivian citizens stormed the streets of Cochabamba to protest the attempted privatization of the city’s water supply. The fighting between the protesters and the police intensified to the point where the city was shut down for four days and Bolivia’s president declared a state of emergency. The escalation of these protests forms the political context behind the arresting Even The Rain, a film that lends mammoth urgency to this very specific moment in Latin American history.
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Gael Garcia Bernal and Luis Tosar co-star as Sebastián and Costa, a film director and producer staying in Bolivia with their cast and crew to shoot a historical exposé about Christopher Columbus—namely, Columbus’s exploitation of the indigenous peoples of the New World. On the first day, Sebastián is struck by Daniel, a diminutive and charismatic man waiting in the audition line with his daughter, and pegs him to play Hatuey, the leader of the native resistance against Columbus. Complications arise when Daniel begins to get in trouble for leading the protests in Cochabamba.
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Much is made of this life-imitating-art-imitating-life situation, as well as the ironic exploitation at work in Sebastián’s film about exploitation. At the first table read, Antón—the actor playing Columbus—stands up and directs Columbus’s aggressive treatment of a native at an indigenous caterer, before breaking and affably apologizing that “all actors are selfish.” The caterer Antón pretends to scream at is unamused enough to make the situation simultaneously hilarious and excruciating. The irony is blunt, certainly, but it is effective. The scenes from the movie-within-a-movie are riveting because of their uncomfortable modern significance; a meaningful look that is meant to take place in the 16th century seems painfully and effortlessly to reach across to the present. It is a powerful link, and, for the most part, an effective device to juxtapose the film about Columbus and the modern struggle about water. The film makes it undeniably clear how far back in history the problems of the Cochabamba citizens lie.
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The protests eventually take over the plot of Even The Rain when they intensify so much that the completion of the Columbus film becomes impossible. Even though this development is historically accurate, it nonetheless hurts the movie; Even The Rain gets less interesting when the Columbus film is abandoned, though this is partly because its third act is mostly taken up with a disappointingly sentimental ending.
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More crucial, however, is the question of the importance of Sebastián’s movie itself. It is difficult indeed to take his frequent arguments for its political and historical vitality seriously, because we have seen him act less than generously toward his indigenous actors. At the same time, however, the scenes about the past echo the goings-on of the present so achingly and effectively that it is also difficult to dismiss outright the Columbus film as a frivolity. Sebastián’s movie-in-progress is the rare work of art within a work of art that actually seems like it might be good. So when Even The Rain decides to conclusively solve this problem and deems the Columbus film unimportant, choosing historical specificity over historical breadth, it is hard not to question that choice.
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Nevertheless, Even The Rain remains an engaging account of a turbulent historical event and fascinatingly problematizes the relationship between art and politics. Thoughtful and emotionally gripping, Even The Rain is absolutely worth watching.