Even the Rain ****

A fantastic movie that deserves a much bigger audience than it is likely to get, "Even the Rain" examines the racism and exploitation that continue to exist today, more than 500 years after Columbus's voyages to the new world. This rich addition to the film-within-a-film genre follows a movie crew working in Bolivia making a feature about Columbus, and his shameful and heartless exploitation of the Indians of Cuba to extract its gold for Spain.

In the course of casting and shooting the movie, though, it becomes apparent that the very Indians they are hiring are being exploited by a white European-looking government that has sold water rights to a foreign company, a company that seem to own even the rain. The actor playing the courageous rebel who stood up to Columbus takes off from work to lead protests, and the film producers and crew find themselves caught in a moral dilemma. Are they, coming to Bolivia to hire Indians more cheaply than in other countries, guilty of exploitation themselves? What do they owe their employees?

More than just a clever juxtaposition of stories, "Even the Rain" raises some fundamental questions about how the natives of the New World have fared, and what can and should happen when they are truly empowered. The cast is excellent, especially Gael Garcia Bernal as the writer, and Luis Tosar as the producer. (In Spanish with English subtitles.)