And Then The Rain Came

A hard rain’s a-gonna fall in this sodden series dedicated to the cinematic downpour, whether employed as an atmosphere-building element (those reflective puddles!), a dramatic accent on moments of release or heightened tension, or a kind of deus ex machina, as in Magnolia’s climactic torrent of amphibians. The boggy post-apocalypse of Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, the plash of rain on the canopies of overhanging trees in Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon and Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali, the emotive lashings of omnipresent precipitation in Jane Campion’s The Piano, and many another deluges await. Make sure to wear your Wellies, ’cuz it’s gonna be a wet one!