The Rain People (1969)

The face of horror!

The widely renowned Joseph Campbell expressed once that the religion has been written in poetic language, but has been read in prose.

If we bring this statement into the cinematographic lexicon, we might establish surprising parallelisms. "Rain people" is a crude and devastating portrait about losers along the way; it deals with the life and times of anonymous human beings, trapped in the web of the routine and existential hopeless, so typical in those times in which the state of things surmounted by far, the context of many people around the world.

A desperate and bored house wife,(who discovers is pregnant)decides to make a crucial decision, so she leaves her home and flees with her car. But in the road she will pick up a retarded ex football star who has a metal plate in his head (a very personal tribute of Coppola to Renoir's "The Great illusion") .

The movie ends abruptly, because it's a logical consequence of a fevered state of anima.

This film has been regarded by many people, a shocking cult movie, because like a dark glass, reflects a horrid ambiance by then.

If not, ask yourself why the Academy Award was precisely to "Midnight Cowboy" and why there were so many films that mirrored with major or minor impact this social reality: Easy rider, Zabriskie Point, If, Strawberry's statement, Seconds, Shock corridor, The chase, The naked kiss, Cool hand Luke, Adalen 31, Do-des ka den, Pierrot le fou or Belle de jour.
October 5, 2007

Please Put On DVD!!!!

Please put this reknowned Francis Ford Copolla movie on DVD and include the documentary"The Making of "The Rain People".That would be great!!! June 1, 2007

Film School Students should watch this one.

I saw this in 1971 on an outdoor screen in a Construction Camp in Northern Australia when I was 19. It made enough of an impression that I still remember it, although I've never seen it on TV since. Caan (Pre-Godfather) was good, the girl was OK, but Robert Duvall as a single parent Cop living in a trailer in some one-horse armpit town in Middle America was textbook perfect. December 23, 2006

Overdue for a proper DVD release...

If this title should EVER see the light of day on DVD, it should include as one of its supplemental materials the
hour-long 16mm documentary, "Filmmaker" shot by George Lucas (now a standard instructional film in most major film programs.) September 28, 2006

Devastating portrayal of freedom and responsibility

Shirley Knight plays a young Long Island housewife who finds herself pregnant and unsure she wants the child. She bolts out the door and hits the road in a station wagon. She feels trapped in her life and decides to break out by picking up a hitchhiker, James Caan. He turns out to be a brain-damaged ex-football player who can hardly fend for himself. She feels responsible for him, can't dump him - so her bolt for freedom becomes a very real restraint on her life. That, of course, is the main point of the movie, which was written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola - a good theme for sure, and for the most part done well, despite our being hit over the head with it to make sure we get it.

Caan is excellent as the deadhead; Knight is good, too, but hardly a sympathetic character. This was one of the first of many movies about women questioning their roles in society, and one of the better ones because of its emphasis on responsibility. The ending is shattering and ironic, with Caan dying in Knight's arms after trying to "save" her from what he thinks is an attack on her by a cop (played by Robert Duvall). The movie has sticking power and does not evaporate from the mind like many movies do. December 24, 2005

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