Simplicity and effectiveness are the keywords for our second film review, part of our series of Latin American films you should watch before you die.
A tale of love and fortunes lost and found. Two characters, two dreamers. El Mismo Amor, la Misma Lluvia (Same Love, Same Rain) released in 1999 is the little-known, debut production from Argentine director Juan Jose Campanella, who went on to win an Oscar for his later film ‘The Secret in Their Eyes’,
Part of a trilogy on the topic of love, it narrates the story of writer/storyteller Jorge (played by Ricardo Darin) and Lucia (Soledad Villamil) a waitress and aspiring actress, the very same actors of the later Oscar-winning film.
This tender, heart-felt, compassionate, in-depth comedy of two lives intertwined by hopes, dreams and passionate love, is topped with a touch of nostalgia and what-could-have-been sentiments of regrets and reminiscence.
Through Campanella’s camera we follow Jorge and Lucia as they fall in and out of love and friendship, through twenty years of personal changes as we also experience Argentina’s two decades of socio-political mutation.
The film starts with the sound of rain gently falling on the streets of an undisclosed Argentinian city (probably Buenos Aires). It is 1980, Jorge is in his car, smoking his umpteenth cigarette when he spots Laura divinely taking in the cold beads of rain. He stares at her as she smiles back. This is the precise moment when we fathom that a bond, a strong and beautiful bond is going to unite them forever.
Both characters are young, fascinating romantics, both dream of love. Jorge introduces himself through his background voice as he’s typing on his Olivetti typewriter - a young and talented writer working for a local magazine. He has big dreams of glory and most of all, of happiness. For Jorge, dreams are the only expression of desire.
Lucia is playing the part of the female lead in a short film based on one of Jorge’s stories. A beautiful, alluring, wistful woman working as a waitress in a restaurant, she waits for her boyfriend to return from his trip to Uruguay.
Just like Jorge, Laura is driven by dreams of glory and happiness too. The relationship between the two starts with Laura being unsure of what Jorge’s place in her life would be to her then realizing that the ardent passion between their two bodies and souls could not be ignored.
The ups and downs of Jorge and Laura’s relationship are paralleled by the ups and downs of the political scene of the country they live in. Like a haunting presence, we catch glimpses of the twenty years that shaped modern-day Argentina, through the film and its characters.
Starting with Guerra Sucia (Dirty War) of the 1980s, the Desaparecidos (Disappeared), the economic crises and the Falkland War all the way to the much-needed restoration of Democracy of 1983. Years pass and Jorge and Luisa meet again. They talk about their changing of identity, their separate experiences, their (now) cynical views on love. Their restlessness is almost tangible. They both lead lives of quiet discomfort where neither of them ever managed to achieve the happiness they had so longed for in their youth. The film ends with the two talking and rain pouring.
Campanella uses rain as a metaphor, a purifying medium. All the masks of fakeness, elusiveness and rigidity that characterize the human being are washed away by the rain – present at the start and end of this story. Rain washes away everything but real, authentic and transparent love, an emotion that the director manages to capture in a sublime way.
Same Love, Same Rain is a great account of two simple, yet complex lives and it is here to remind us that “all the moments that we consider to be the least important in our lives, actually turn out to be the most important” (quote) and this is a lesson we should all treasure.
