Movie review: Before the Rains

by John P. Meyer

Before the Rains is a beautiful, sad, thoughtful film about the waning days of British colonialism in India (circa 1937). With themes of cultural subversion, personal responsibility, loyalty, betrayal, courage and - of course - love, the story centers on the romantic entanglement and empire-building ambitions of an English spice planter whose weakness and egocentricity threaten not only his tenuous financial standing, but also the well-being of his family and that of the local workers in his employ.

Filmed amidst the lush rolling-hill tropics of southwestern India, the cinematography is rife with saturated colors and golden, glowing skin tones. Director Santosh Sivan knows this terrain: he was born here, and he lends his personal perspective to the proceedings.

On its surface, the story documents the overweening pride and hubristic fall of plantation boss Henry Moores (Linus Roache), who's gone out on a very spindly limb to leverage bank funding for a road he's building through the jungle which will make his spice trade more profitable. When I say "he" in relation to road building I refer not to Henry himself, but to the Indian laborers under his management, led by a charismatic young man named T.K. (Rahul Bose, in a convincing star turn). T.K. has become so essential to Henry's operations that Henry has conferred upon him numerous privileges, including unfettered access to the plantation's truck and - most remarkably - the gift of a Webley revolver. With this conferral, T.K. apprehends that he's achieved true respectability and perhaps a semblance of equality in the eyes of his British employer.

Making inroads of a different sort into the boundaries separating native and colonial cultures is housemaid Sajani (Nandita Das), who's engaged in a torrid affair with Henry. (Henry's wife and son are frequently absent from the far-flung agricultural outpost.) It's clear that the relationship between servant and master has become more than just a casual fling - they are shown to be lovers in the literal sense.

When wife Laura (Jennifer Ehle) and son Peter (Leopold Benedict) return to the plantation, Sajani has an increasingly difficult time playing second romantic fiddle. For his part, Henry experiences a sudden difficulty in expressing his physical affections to his lovely wife, going so far as to intentionally overturn a vase from the bedside table when Laura attempts to saddle up. D'oh!

Emotions boil to the surface and Henry is forced to choose between his lover and his wife (not to mention his career, his family, his culture... you get the idea). He makes the expected choice and abandons Sajani on numerous and hurtful levels. The outcome is both inevitable and tragic.

There's a backstory involving the emergent Indian protest movement against colonial exploitation; the individual travails of T.K. serve to bring focus to this "big picture" story element. T.K. is torn between two worlds, with his personal trauma demonstrating the ugliness of colonialism and finally convincing him that he will never be treated as an equal by Henry, but only as a convenient tool. It will take a test of fire to determine whether T.K.'s corrupted spirit is salvageable.

As Henry, Linus Roache does a convincing job of portraying the flawed (i.e., "human") functionary of a failed system whose course of action is prescribed by his culture and social standing. No one among his peers could really blame him for his cruel, cowardly treatment of Sajani, because that approach would be so obviously necessary to them. Regardless, karma comes 'round to visit Henry in a major way.

Whether director Sivan intended to or not, he's woven into the story a quadrant of elemental themes: water cleanses, fire transports, air presages change (in the form of monsoon rains) and earth abides, while the road laboriously scraped from the hillside reverts slowly to its native state.

Before the Rains opens May 16 at Landmark's Inwood.