Come Rain, Come Shine

Sifting through the generic family, comedy, action films on a recent overseas flight, I ended up checking out the international section and came across this.  Something about it peaked my interest, and I had an 8 hour flight ahead of me.  Watching a film on an 8 inch monitor on an airplane isn't exactly ideal, but the moment the film started I stopped noticing everything else around me.  The flight attendant had to have the woman next to me tap my shoulder to find out my drink order.

The opening shot is a 9-minute long unbroken shot of a married couple driving to the airport in the rain.  Their conversation is quiet, near emotionless, and bored.  During the seemingly casual back and forth between the couple, the wife informs her husband that she's leaving him for another man.  His reaction is quiet, almost as if he knew it was coming.

From there we're back inside the married couples' house as the wife packs up her things to leave as the rain intensifies.  The husband assists his wife in packing, as the two go through several quiet, toneless conversations, reflecting on their time together, memories, and carrying about their daily tasks.  They hardly ever speak of her leaving, or who the man is, or where anything went wrong, it all just seems understood.

There really isn't much more to it than that.  The conversations are almost always quiet and calm.  The actors remain nearly emotionless as they move about the house, unable to leave due to the heavy rain.  The majority of the film is shown in real-time.  There are only 4 actors that appear in the film, two of them only appear in the film for maybe ten minutes.

Without emotions shown in dialogue, or on the faces of the actors, the mood is set by the camera itself.  Herein lies the experimental aspect of the film.  Despite the lack of emotion, there's always a sense of loneliness accentuated by the camera and even the house itself.

At such an incredibly deliberate pace, it never feels slow, there's always something happening, some emotion being conveyed.   I'm not sure the film came together the way it could have, it wasn't as convincing as I wanted, but it was an interesting change of pace.

B.