Even the Rain: Sketches of Spanish Agitprop

Right from the start, when its dedication to the memory of Howard Zinn flashes on the screen, a new Spanish celluloid import wears its anti-capitalism on its sleeve.

The new film Even the Rain does a service for right-leaning audiences in the opening seconds.

The screen flashes “In Memory of Howard Zinn” before any actors appear on screen. Right away, you know the Spanish import will wear its anti-capitalism on its sleeve, but like the better ideological movies it doesn’t let demagoguery mute its storytelling instincts.

And the film offers fleeting moments of self-awareness which make the ideological tonic easier to quaff.

This film within a film ostensibly covers the making of a feature on Christopher Columbus, one that highlights the more barbarous actions of his legendary journey. But the real story is set amidst the 2000 peasant strikes against a private firm buying up water rights in Bolivia, a move which meant “even the rain” couldn’t be collected for free.

The Motorcycle Diaries star Gael Garcia Bernal plays Sebastian, the driven director trying to make his Columbus film under challenging conditions. The budgetary constraints are the least of his concerns. The crew chose the town of Cochabamba for the backdrop unaware of the tumultuous political backdrop. A private company has taken over the local water supply and is charging rates the poor locals can’t afford. The locals, in turn, are taking to the streets to protest the move.

Sebastian’s predicament gets worse when he decides to hire a local named Daniel (Juan Carlos Aduviri) to play a key role in the production. Daniel may have an intensity that’s perfect for the part, but he’s just as impassioned about the water issue embroiling his neighborhood. Every time there’s a citizen uprising Daniel is right there, imploring his “comrades” to resist.

The film’s no-nonsense producer Costa (Luis Tosar) isn’t swayed by the water protests. He’s got a job to do, and he’ll do whatever is necessary to get it done. If that means bribing a local official or two, so be it.

But the showdown between government security forces and angry citizens looks unavoidable. That won’t just shut down the film production. It could put the lives of the cast and crew in real danger.

Even the Rain benefits from vibrant casting, particularly with Aduviri’s turn as the fiery resistor. His angular face often stays unchanged, but it has a haunted look that serves both the character and his plight. Some actors, like Ben Affleck, can look stiff in repose. For Aduviri, saying nothing speaks volumes.

The film crew prove a resourceful lot, and when a key figure has a serious change of heart about the situation at hand it plays out in credible fashion. That subplot also powers the final 25 minutes of the movie, adding tension to an already involving story.

Director Iciar Bollain can’t resist staging moments that put an exclamation point on the project’s political bent. Consider one sequence where the film crew sip fine champagne while outside locals are protesting the high price of simple water.

And the comparisons between Columbus’ exploitative ways and how a modern company is doing virtually the same to the locals is a theme that’s pounded into the viewer. A more nuanced storyteller would have rendered the theme in more subtle shadings.

Bollain lets us see snippets from the film in progress without a filter. There’s no camera shown capturing the action or other hints that this is a film shoot. That gives the scenes more power — and more ways to reinforces Rain’s ideological bent.

“We will enslave you … and do as much harm as we can” the film’s Columbus warns the natives in one early sequence.

Yet Even the Rain acknowledges how films like this can work on several levels, an awareness many left-wing films lack.

“This isn’t art. It’s pure propaganda,” says the actor playing Christopher Columbus in Sebastion’s film during a heated dinner conversation centered on the movie’s politics.

Often in ideologically driven films the “bad guys” aren’t allowed to speak coherently. They exist simply to let the hero appear noble by comparison. Here, one of the local officials explains the pro-privatization position without being made to look foolish.

Even the Rain shrewdly doesn’t deify the locals. When a water company car drives past them and stops, a group of angry citizens trashes it without mercy. And Daniel is far from a saint. He’s stubborn, unfriendly, and single-minded. And he uses the film’s crew with impunity.

Zinn would surely be pleased by Even the Rain. But the film’s bald ideological currents cannot overshadow the story playing out within that context.

Howard Zinn, eh?

I had kind of a funny experience (well, at least it was funny to me) with my introduction to Howard Zinn…

My departed mother-in-law was, in life, a major-league liberal. She was a community organizer type of liberal. Now, I didn’t know this about her before I married my wife, but it wouldn’t have made a difference to me.

As the years went on, both my viewpoints and her viewpoints became known to each of us… and we entered a phase where she would say things deliberately to get a response out of me (or to see if I would just sit and say nothing)

Needless to say, I wasn’t about to sit and get baited by my mother-in-law, so I gave back in like kind when she initiated something. This went on for a relatively short period of time, then we kind of came to a mutual understanding. Neither one of us said a thing, but the understanding was there nonetheless that we would keep the peace by keeping our tongue. Not to say she wouldn’t occasionally poke at me (or me at her) but after that, that was pretty much all it was. I was kind of got the impression she was doing it just to see if I would stand up for myself.

In any case, I received a Christmas present from her one particular year. She knew that I was a history buff, and I read history prodigiously, so it was no surprise to me when I opened one of her Christmas presents and saw a history book. It was a fairly good-sized glossy volume, and I figured I’d put my feet up when I got home and begin reading.

When I got home, I opened the book up and began reading. At first, I was puzzled. “What the heck is this?” I read little bit further, and got even more perplexed. “What the hell kind of book is this?” I thought to myself.

I immediately begin skipping through the book, preferentially stopping in key areas in American history. As I reached each section, I would read sometimes only a sentence, or occasionally a paragraph. After I had been through multiple sections in this manner, I stood up angrily and exclaimed “screw this piece of crap!”

I walked out in the garage and through the book in the trash.

The name of the book was “The People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn.

I was appalled. I had never seen a history book quite like that one. I was even more disturbed to find out later that this was an actual textbook used in public school classrooms all over the country. I’m still appalled at that thought.

In retrospect, it popped into my mind almost immediately as I was throwing the book in the trash, that this was perhaps my mother-in-law poking her finger in my eye. After a few more seconds of contemplation, I guessed that was not the case.

Knowing how my mother-in-law shops, particularly for Christmas presents, this book was almost undoubtedly on the bargain bookshelf at the front of the Borders bookstore when she walked in. I’d be willing to bet that she didn’t pay more than a few dollars for, because I doubt you could find it inside the store at regular price, and besides, she wasn’t the type to pay money for books, even as gifts.

So, every time I hear the name Howard Zinn, I think of the anti-American far left political screed that was his book that I had the pleasure to throw into a garbage can.

Yeah, I think Zinn was the one who coined that phrase, but of course, some dissenters are more equal than others.

Dissent now is not only treasonous but also racists because only ignorant, gun toting rednecks from red states have an opinion different from "The Chosen One" (See the Tea Party treatment)

...the cannibalistic Carib Indians that Columbus ran into were hardly a peaceful paradise for the eeeevvvvuuul white Europeans to despoil."

The Leftist "historians" have a peculiar version of history that conveniently judges American/European vs Tribal Indigenous peoples conflicts by modern day morale standards.

The Leftist never apply modern standards to the indigenous people's OWN brutal tribal standards of the same time period.

They never give credit to Christian European culture for the modern morales they so love to bludgeon the white Christian Europeans with.

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