Before The Rains Movie Reviews

Before The Rains, directed by Santosh Sivan, is a tragic tale of love, death and guilt set against a backdrop of the emerging nationalist movement in the 30s. Linus Roache plays Henry Moores, a British spice grower in Kerala who's hoping to expand his business prospects by building a road through the jungle. He's also carrying on an affair with his married maid-servant Sajani (played by Nandita Das), an indiscretion that his faithful employee TK (played by Rahul Bose) keeps under wraps.

Santosh Sivan's cinema scores mostly through its picturesque frames, with the camera, rather than the characters, doing most of the story-telling. Here too, he captures the backwaters of Kerala with exquisite artistry and creates a period film that lives more through its visual opulence than its story. Henry Moore has a dream. He wants to build a road in the undeveloped rural terrain of traditional Kerala to help further the spice trade.

The plot of Before The Rains might seem vaguely familiar. It revolves around the themes of an imperialistic attitude, the clash of cultures, and a forbidden relationship between a master and his maid. But what sets it apart is its dispassionate study of power, and how, when it is threatened, it tries to fortify itself. This film, which was released elsewhere in the world in 2007 and releases in India this weekend, is set in Kerala in the year 1937.