“Soft Rains Will Come”– Movie Review

This weekend, I attended The Latin American Film Festival at The Film Society of Lincoln Center for a screening of the new drama from Argentina, “Soft Rains Will Come”.

Synopsis

When a group of children discover that the adults in their town are unable to awaken from a deep sleep, will they be able to fend for themselves?

Story

Alma is understandably concerned.  Although she has spent a fun day playing with her friends, this is the first time her parents have let her spend the night away from home.  She has been promised that her mother would pick her up the next day.  Alma believes her mother.  And yet …  She goes to sleep with her girlfriends and their siblings.  The next morning, however, is something else altogether.  Looking around the house, Alma is suspicious.  The adults are nowhere to be found.  Family pets are scrounging for food.  What’s worse, there appears to be no electricity.  Something’s not right.

Once Alma’s friends awaken, they notice that their parents are still sound asleep – and they won’t wake up.  Nevertheless, they are confident that eventually the adults will get up and everything will return to normal.  But where are Alma’s parents?  The children try to feed themselves – but unable to cook, they can only eat a stash of candy and some ice cream that’s starting to melt since the freezer doesn’t have any electricity to work properly.  With darkness coming, they are able to secure some flashlights, but how long will the batteries last?   

The next day, Alma declares that she must leave as she’s now concerned about her baby brother.  Even though her parents still haven’t arrived or tried to contact her, she sets out on her journey – but not alone.  A few of Alma’s friends volunteer to join her on what will turn out to be a very long walk.  Along the way, they meet Simona.  Simona is slightly older than the rest of them, but nevertheless, finds herself in a similar circumstance when her grandmother is unable to awaken from her slumber.  She joins them on their trek, but when they finally arrive at Alma’s house, how will they deal with the surprise they have found? 

Review

The title of this movie is derived from a poem by that name written a century ago.  This poem “There Will Come Soft Rains” is about the effect of war on nature and the impact man also has on nature.  While this is something of an interesting concept, the film itself meanders considerably and the seemingly aimless nature rather detracts from the story.  Although we are aware that the group is trying to help Alma get home, they admit that they’re not sure if they’re going in the right direction, so we have no idea whether they’re making progress or not.  In fact, it isn’t until near the end of the motion picture that we learn that they have found her house.

Another matter is the ambiguity in the third act, which doesn’t seem to have a clear resolution to the story.  There appears something which the director refers to as a “presence”; it is unclear whether this is a ghost or a space alien or the figment of someone’s vivid imagination.  Apparently, it’s left to the viewer to interpret this as he or she wishes. Where this gets a little confusing also is the reaction that the children have to this “presence” -- they laugh with delight rather than initially responding in a terrified fashion.  Also, there is the curiosity that the children don’t seem as scared as one might expect given the fact that their parents are not waking up (nor do there seem to be any other adults who are awake).

Following the screening, there was an interview with director Ivan Fund.  Sleep is an important element of this movie; the girl in this story was afraid of sleeping away from her parents.  As a child, Fund himself couldn’t sleep when having a sleepover at a friend’s house. He believes that this comes from him being an only child who slept in the same bed as his parents when he was little.  The children in “There Will Come Soft Rains” are not professional actors. Most of the children in the film are girls; Fund stated that in his original version of the script, these characters were all boys.  However, when he went to audition the children in this town, he found that by far, the girls had the most acting talent, so he changed the script to have most of the characters as girls.