#15: Are You Still Watching? Movies for a rainy day 🌧️
Wallow in the year's moodiest month with a curated watchlist by In The Mood contributor Kawai Shen
Bleak & Gloomy November Rain movie list
by Kawai Shen
A bleak and gloomy November Rain movie needs to include all three elements that define the epic Guns N’ Roses music video of the same name. First, there needs to be rain, obviously. But not just incidental rain. It needs to be rain that’s unforgiving—a relentless emo downpour. Second, there needs to be a bitching soundtrack, ideally equal to Slash’s keening guitar solo. Third, somebody’s gotta die too young.
Blade Runner (1982)
You saw this neo-noir coming. Crafty cyborg replicants dodge, fight, and kill their way across rainy, neon-lit streets for their survival as Vangelis’ blazing ‘80s synths crescendo and fall, bathing the film’s cityscapes with sound. While its stylish, chiaroscuro violence and angst was originally received as dystopic, today it offers a relatively benign vision of artificial intelligence. If you find yourself doomscrolling, turn off the algos and give this a rewatch.
🌧️ Rain: 9/10, Soundtrack: 8/10, Death: 9/10
Dil Se.. (1998)
Bollywood isn’t known for bleakness but this musical classic has it all: high-stakes drama, fever-pitched romance, poetic beauty, A.R. Rahman’s bopping tracks, radical politics, and yes, desolate skies. Its song and dance sequences, shot with a roving camera sweeping across gorgeous sunny vistas, cannot dispel the storm clouds—both figurative and literal—gathering over the entire two hours and forty-five minutes of this film. Indeed, its doomed love story features a state-media radio jockey pursuing a separatist from an ethnic minority determined to seek justice from the government by way of terrorism.
🌧️ Rain: 3/10, Soundtrack: 9/10, Death: 8/10
Vital (2004)
The seemingly obvious Shinya Tsukamoto choice for a rainy film would be the storm-soaked Snake of June were it not for the fact that it evokes the raw humidity of summer so well. But the less celebrated Vital is just as replete with torrential pours. Even the dry scenes are marked by grim interiors and even grimmer actors occasionally enlivened with jarring camerawork and a percussive, industrial soundtrack by Chu Ishikawa. It all makes for a steely meditation on consciousness, memory, flesh, and grieving that’s suitably chilly and dank for a November watch.
🌧️ Rain: 10/10, Soundtrack: 4/10, Death: 7/10
Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
This fantastic telling of a young girl’s experience of magic and resistance in Francoist Spain racks up a brutal body count and the rain is here for it. Multiple scenes of merciless storms compliment the film’s shadowy, dreamlike style with cinematography drenched in rich, moody hues. Javier Navarrete’s memorable lullaby theme provides a refrain that’s equally fanciful and foreboding, capturing both the protagonist’s innocence and her eventual loss of it.
🌧️ Rain: 8/10, Soundtrack: 5/10, Death: 10/10
Infinity Pool (2023)
This film about a couple visiting a lavish luxury retreat in a fictitious Eastern European country might seem like a summer vacation movie but don’t be fooled. Summer here is a short season warped by menacing skies and Tim Hecker’s wailing electronic compositions reminiscent of overlapping air raid sirens. Also, I really wish someone had told me this film involves a scene of Alexander Skarsgård being collared and led about on all fours by a leash; had I known, I wouldn’t have waited so long to watch it. You’re welcome.
🌧️ Rain: 4/10, Soundtrack: 7/10, Death: 5/10 (Bonus dog leash round: 10/10)
Kawai Shen is a writer based in Toronto.
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