BEFORE THE RAINS (12A) ***
Director: Santosh Sivan
Running time: 98 minutesREGARDING Merchant Ivory films, some things never change. Despite the death of Ismail Merchant three years ago, the brand lives on as a producing e
ntity, and Before The Rains serves up exactly what you'd expect: a meticulously shot tale of love and dishonour set against a backdrop of opulent scenery. It's directed by Santosh Sivan, director of 1999's The Terrorist and the 2001 historical epic Asoka The Great.
Film fans who don't like losing constants may find this familiarity almost comforting as another load of patrician colonials roll up to clench their jaws and engage in transgressive, sweaty affairs.
The most interesting aspect of Before The Rains is that it was adapted by Cathy Rabin from a contemporary Israeli film, yet the relocation to India seems convincing, right down to the political undertones and wrinkled linens.
The time is 1937, India is still under the thumb of a crumbling Empire, and the natives are getting restless and contemplating independence. In southern Kerala, Henry Moores (Linus Roache) has ambitions to expand his business and become a spice baron by building a road through the mountains to transport his crop, a project which must be completed before the monsoon season.
As it happens, he is also cropping his Indian servant Sajani (Nandita Das) while his wife (Jennifer Ehle) is away in England. Moores recklessly disregards the dangers of such an affair, while Sajani is convinced that he will eventually leave his family for her. If that were not potentially explosive enough, Henry decides to reward his loyal native manservant and friend TK (Rahul Bose) with the gift of a handsome pistol, which Chekhov's rules of melodrama will require him to regret.
When Mrs Moores returns with their son, Moores struggles to keep her in the dark, his girlfriend from spilling the beans, and Sajani's thuggish husband from getting suspicious. When two local children spot Moores and maid enjoying one of their trysts, the film takes its predicted tragic downward spiral.
Moores asks TK to clear up the mess, putting the stoic right-hand man in the unenviable position of keeping a balance between two cultures – as everyone keeps telling him, and us. Yet despite the two men's desperation, the film leaks tension like a wicker bucket. Sivan has an eye for lush images, but all the gorgeous scenes of significantly loaded honey collecting (sweet, sticky, with the threat of being stung), pristine waterfalls and trapped dragonflies start to feel like the film is stalling for time, and a brutal session of tribal law involving a tongue and a white hot ladle is so languidly executed that it fails to induce the expected wince.
Another inherent problem is that Moores is little more than a metaphor for British rule; careless of the consequences of his actions, unwilling to face up to responsibility and headed for moral and financial bankruptcy.
The cast are left doing a lot of heavy lifting in roles that are pretty uninteresting, although Roache works hard to push his character's weakness and frustration – presumably by thinking about the scripts and directors that Jude Law still gets to work with, while he has to prop up soggy melodramas about corrupting imperialism.
On general release from Friday
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