Qiu Yang's 'Some Rain Must Fall': A Dysfunctional Chinese Film About a Dysfunctional Family

Selected for the Encounters section of the 2024 Berlin International Film Festival. This is Qiu Yang's first feature film. The protagonist is Cai, a housewife in her 40s. She lives in a middle-class household, but she is in the middle of divorce proceedings with her husband, who pays little attention to the family; her middle-school-aged daughter is in the throes of a rebellious phase; and her mother-in-law, who lives with them, is showing signs of dementia and repeatedly behaves strangely. At the beginning of the film, Cai, who has come to pick up her daughter at the school basketball court, is frustrated by her dead-end situation, throws a ball she bumped into in a strange direction, hits an old woman, and is then sued for damages by the other family. It's just one misfortune after another. The film continues to observe Cai as she wanders around, trying to deal with these situations one by one but unable to find any effective solutions, and then moving on to the next problem. Captured voyeuristically by the beautiful cinematography of DP Constanze Schmitt, who continues from Qiu's two acclaimed short films, Cai wanders through spaces dominated by various colored lights. The luster of the shadows at night is particularly good. It's so dark it feels like neon noir. You could almost imagine a detective with a crumpled trench coat, a bent cigarette in his mouth, and a bandage on his nose standing in the alleyway behind the one where Cai has a deathly look on her face (a prejudice). Unfortunately, it was a film that bombarded the audience with misfortune just as I had imagined, but in the final 20 minutes, it threw in further unfortunate episodes regarding Cai's parents' home that hadn't appeared much until then, causing the bottom to fall out. I thought that perhaps through this series of episodes, the film was asking the audience to psychoanalyze the background of how Cai, raised by toxic parents, didn't know how to love others, but since the bottom fell out because of the pile-up of episodes to depict the dysfunction of a middle-class family, I wonder about the film itself falling into dysfunction. Maybe it's interesting in a roundabout way as irony. Also, who is the middle-aged guy with a 3-year-old daughter who appeared at the end? The English title is recovered in the finale, but it was seriously just raining. What is even going on?

・Film Data

Original Title: Some Rain Must Fall
Running Time: 98 minutes
Director: Qiu Yang
Production: 2024 (USA, France, Singapore)

・Rating: 40 points

・Berlin International Film Festival 2024 Other Films

★Competition Section Selection
3 . Abderrahmane Sissako 'Black Tea'A story of people living in an African immigrant neighborhood in Guangzhou
4 . Mati Diop 'Dahomey'About art objects returning to Benin
5 . Veronika Franz & Severin Fiala 'The Devil's Bath'Austria, women driven into a corner
8 . Bruno Dumont 'The Empire'A Flemish 'Star Wars' is a caricature of a broad sci-fi film
10 . Margherita Vicario 'Gloria!'A film that liberates music from theory, sheet music, power, and class
13 . Maryam Moghaddam & Behtash Sanaeeha 'My Favourite Cake'Iran, an old woman's love is a fleeting dream
14 . Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias 'Pepe'Dominican Republic, a story told by the residual thoughts of Pepe the hippo
15 . Min Bahadur Bham 'Shambhala'Nepal, those who go to Shambhala
19 . Hong Sang-soo 'A Traveler's Needs'Isabelle Huppert as a natural psycho teacher who loves makgeolli

★Encounters Section Selection
4 . Guillaume Cailleau & Ben Russell's 'Direct Action'The lives and activities of people resisting in the ZAD in northwestern France
5 . Ruth Beckermann's 'Favoriten'Austria, Ilkay's classroom
10 . Qiu Yang's 'Some Rain Must Fall'China, a dysfunctional film depicting a dysfunctional family
13 . Nele Wohlatz's 'Sleep with Your Eyes Open'Brazil, "Do you really understand the person you are translating for?"