Master cinematographer Santosh Sivan has again put on his director’s hat for Before the Rains, opening today in NY and LA.
(Not to be confused with the gorgeous 1994 Macedonian film Before the Rain by Milcho Manchevski.)
Here in Manhattan, we’ve seen a lot of the director and his cast in the past week or so.
First, there was a press day and reception at the Indian consulate. Yesterday, Jennifer Ehle
was a guest on Leonard Lopate’s show on WNYC to talk about her role in the film, and in the evening, film critic Jeffrey Lyons hosted a screening of the film with Q&A afterward with Santosh Sivan and producer Paul Hardart.
Reel Talk will soon have an interview up on their site with one of the film’s lead actors and now local boy (while he’s starring in Law and Order), Linus Roche.
Will post my thoughts on the film soon.
Meanwhile, Mr. Sivan has departed NY today to attend the Silk Screen festival in Pittsburgh, where Before the Rains will be featured.
Joseph,
Sadly, my reaction was similar to yours. I think Santosh Sivan is incredibly talented, has a great eye, and from what I’ve seen when chatting with him, is also a really warm and intelligent guy, but, aside from the beauty of the cinematography, I also was largely unmoved by the story, and disappointed that there was not even the hint of a spark between Roache and Das. (And I agree, she is gorgeous and usually compelling onscreen. Funny that in both her Tribeca Film Festival appearances this year, she’s a damsel in distress, yet again. I’d really love to see her play some different, kick-a$$ role for a change.) Yes, I also thought that Rahul Bose was the most interesting character and played his part well, but, as Lisa Tsering wrote in her review (and I’m paraphrasing here) Bose’s character seemed more a visiting professor who was on the plantation to do research, than a foreman. That said, this is the man who’s done Dil Se and Iruvar and The Terrorist, and Sivan’s next film, Tahaan, is very interesting to me and I can’t wait to see it. (Due out later this year.) I’m especially looking forward to seeing Victor Banerjee and Sarika, as well as the young boy in the lead, and the Kashmiri scenery.
Maria,
I am in NY for the next couple of weeks & so I sought out and saw this one over the weekend.I must say I was pretty disappointed with this effort from Sivan.
It started off promisngly enough but then decayed into standard melodramatic fare.Nandita Das didn’t have much to do except look pretty and ‘exotic’ (which she does wonderfully well BTW!), Linus Roache was expectedly wooden and Jeniffer Ehle was competent as usual.Perhaps the best performance was Rahul Bose’s T.K Neelan who is torn between loyalty to his boss and his own moral convictions.The story line is predictable & dramatic enough, but it’s handled by director Santosh Sivan in a muted if tasteful fashion that proves uninvolving.
The trial-by-red-hot-spoon sequence late in the movie was just plain weird and struck me as shamelessly pandering to western Notions of Tribal India and such.
I really don’t know what Santosh Sivan was trying to do here—-whatever it was I didn’t work for me.’The Terrorist’ was an infinitely superior film even though it had much poorer production values.I’m awaiting your review!!