‘Even the Rain’: A study of exploitation, in the 15th century and today

A movie crew gets more than it bargained for in “Even the Rain,” a committed little film about various levels of greed playing out in reality and fiction.

Let’s back up to explain. The film crew has arrived in Bolivia to shoot a picture about colonial abuse in the 15th-century New World. Although the characters in the story never reached Bolivia, the producer (Luis Tovar, late of “Cell 211”) knows that extras can be hired for two dollars a day there.

So he and the director (Gael Garcia Bernal, from “Y Tu Mama Tambien”) settle in for a cheap shoot. They absolve themselves in the knowledge that their film will reveal the exploitation of the native peoples by the European invaders, and, hey, a bargain’s a bargain.

Inconveniently, an uprising is brewing in the streets. The government has sold off the water rights to a multinational corporation, which means that the poor people of this place will now have to pay money they don’t have for the most basic of natural resources. Thus the title: Even the rain is now owned by someone.

The filmmakers have chosen a local man (played by the striking Juan Carlos Aduviri) to play the 15th-century rebel leader Hatuey, who was burned alive by the Spanish conquerors. The local man himself becomes a protest leader in the water wars.

At first this is a bother for the film production: What if the guy gets arrested when there’s still footage left to shoot? But eventually, the volatile situation becomes much more real than anybody imagined.

“Even the Rain” is directed by Icair Bollain, who made the powerful “Take My Eyes” with Luis Tovar, and written by Paul Laverty, who has worked often with the politically charged director Ken Loach (“The Wind That Shakes the Barley”).

Nobody gets off the hook easily in this movie, except the natives; the well meaning producer and director, nicely played by Tosar and Garcia Bernal, are foolish in their own naivete.

This movie doesn’t avoid the possibilities for heavy-handedness; we can see all too easily the parallels between then and now.

But fortune might be on this film’s side. With public protest spilling into the streets all around the globe, its vision of people gathering together to say “No mas!” is an accidental bit of good timing.