Film

Even the Rain

A Spanish film crew shooting a Columbus epic in Bolivia finds their production consumed by the real-world uprising happening around them—a story about storytelling, exploitation, and whose narratives get told. Formally clever, morally urgent, and shot through with irony that never tips into cynicism. For viewers who want cinema that thinks.

TMDb rating3.5

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you enjoy films that hold a story about filmmaking and a story about real injustice side by side, and let the friction between them do the work rather than spelling it out.

Skip it if you want a tidy, self-contained plot; this one splits its attention between two timelines and two sets of people, and its sharpest points come through argument rather than action.

What it asks of you: It runs about an hour and forty minutes and stays deliberate, with long conversations and a steady, serious weight rather than a quick pulse, so settle in and give it your full attention.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

The Milk of Sorrow2009

Claudia Llosa's visionary Peruvian film layers colonial history, family trauma, and magical realism into something formally daring and deeply felt. If Even the Rain's structural play intrigued you, this goes further.

But Deliberately oblique and dreamlike in ways that demand patience. Some will find it frustratingly opaque rather than mysterious.

The Milk of Sorrow poster

Embrace of the Serpent2015

A Colombian film about two journeys up the Amazon—one real, one imagined—that unpicks colonialism and the stories we tell about conquest. Shot in black-and-white, visually stunning, equally interested in form and history.

But Slow-paced and meditative. The mythic register isn't for everyone, and it demands you sit with ambiguity rather than resolve.

Embrace of the Serpent poster

The Battle of Chile: Part I1975

Patricio Guzmán's documentary trilogy captures the Allende government's fall in real time. Raw, urgent, and a masterclass in what cinema can witness when history accelerates around you.

But Three hours across three films, shot on 16mm with the grain and instability that implies. Archival rather than polished; demands real commitment.

The Battle of Chile: Part I poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Even the Rain

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

The Battle at Lake Changjin2021

Both examine how cinema carries ideology—but this one does so from inside the system rather than critically outside it. A conversation partner rather than a mirror.

Chinese war epic that's simultaneously a blockbuster and a work of propaganda—a film acutely aware of its own machinery and message. Massive, moving, and entirely conscious of its own narratives.

But Nationalistic in ways that may alienate Western viewers. Three hours of Chinese cinema made for Chinese audiences, which some will find didactic or limiting.

The Battle at Lake Changjin poster
More like this (7)

The Constant Gardener2005

Mike Leigh's adaptation of Le Carré uses Africa as setting and conscience, unraveling corporate complicity in the same way Even the Rain unravels good intentions. Intelligent thriller with a conscience.

But Shifts tone midway through—grief overtakes mystery. Some find the second half less satisfying than the first.

The Constant Gardener poster

Death and the Maiden1994

Polanski adapts Ariel Dorfman's play about trauma and power in post-dictatorship Chile. Chamber piece that explodes. Formally precise and morally unresolved in ways that linger.

But Confined setting, theatrical intensity. The artificiality that makes it powerful can feel mannered if you're not with it.

Death and the Maiden poster

Nostalgia for the Light2010

Guzmán again, this time in the Atacama Desert, connecting astronomy, archaeology, and the hunt for disappeared bodies. Meditative and devastating. A poem about memory and sight.

But Essayistic and very slow. Rewards contemplation; punishes distraction. Some will find it more art installation than narrative.

Nostalgia for the Light poster

The Salt of Life2011

Ferreri's late film examines masculinity and desire in Rome with darkly comic clarity. A different register from Even the Rain but the same refusal to sentimentalize.

But Bleak comedy about an aging man's sexual rejection. Depends entirely on your tolerance for uncomfortable humor without resolution.

The Salt of Life poster

The House of the Spirits1993

Bille August brings Isabel Allende's multi-generational saga to screen with magic and political rage. Sweeping and romantic but grounded in real violence and loss.

But Tries to contain too much; occasionally melodramatic. The ambition sometimes exceeds the execution in a nearly three-hour film.

The House of the Spirits poster

A Prophet2009

Jacques Audiard's prison film watches a young man survive by reading the systems around him—similar architecture of complicity and adaptation as Even the Rain, just in a different setting.

But Violence and brutality throughout. Uncompromising in its refusal to make anyone likeable or redemptive.

A Prophet poster

Listen to Britain1942

Like Even the Rain, it's a film about what happens when you point a camera at reality—but Jennings surrenders to the moment rather than interrogating it. Same question, opposite answer.

Humphrey Jennings' wartime documentary abandons explanation for pure sound and image—no narration, no plot, just Britain listening to itself. Formal invention in service of a moment. Hypnotic.

But Twenty-three minutes of associative montage. No conventional narrative. Feels like a poem or a dream if you're generous; like experimental pretension if you're not.

Listen to Britain poster

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Recommended by

Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Apocalypto