While alone in her house, a young woman gets raped by an unknown intruder. Soon afterwards, she shoots him with her rifle, in self-defence. She decides to keep the whole episode secret and does her best to destroy the various traces. Suddenly a second male stranger shows up, this time in order to ask a lot of questions...
"Le passager de la pluie" is a French thriller with a memorable, slightly surreal atmosphere and look ; it feels as though reality were turning first into a dream and then into a nightmare. The thriller plot itself is complicated, even over-complicated. One gets the impression that this is a case where less would have been more.
Much of "Le passager de la pluie" consists of a long psychological duel between the rape victim and the man who pursues her with his relentless enquiries, which translates as a long psychological duel between Marlène Jobert and Charles Bronson. It's a master stroke of casting, since the tiny, delicate, small-boned Jobert is pretty much the opposite of the rough and tough Branson. However, this material raises quite a lot of questions. The man continues to pester, annoy and harrass a woman who - and this must have been clear almost from the beginning - is a victim rather than a perpetrator, to wit an inoffensive citizen who was foully raped and had to resort to violence in order to save her very life. As the movie progresses, he drives her nearly out of her mind with worry and fear. And the problem here is that the movie rather suggests the male character is not a bad person : it continues to find reasons/excuses for his behaviour. I'm sorry, but a person who knowingly and willingly adds to the misery of a victim IS a bad person, period.
In the movie, the woman keeps quiet about the rape, presumably because she can't face the additional stress of talking about her ordeal to a lot of (male) strangers, many of whom would be sure to make critical remarks about sexy nylons or short skirts. She's also fearful of harming her marriage, given the fact that she's married to a jealous and domineering husband liable to explode in a variety of unlovely ways. All over the world, hundreds of thousands of women have found themselves in a similar situation - and the problem continues to this day. Tragically, rape still features among the most underreported crimes.
A final note : the movie includes a great performance by Annie Cordy, in an unusually serious and complex role.
"Le passager de la pluie" is a French thriller with a memorable, slightly surreal atmosphere and look ; it feels as though reality were turning first into a dream and then into a nightmare. The thriller plot itself is complicated, even over-complicated. One gets the impression that this is a case where less would have been more.
Much of "Le passager de la pluie" consists of a long psychological duel between the rape victim and the man who pursues her with his relentless enquiries, which translates as a long psychological duel between Marlène Jobert and Charles Bronson. It's a master stroke of casting, since the tiny, delicate, small-boned Jobert is pretty much the opposite of the rough and tough Branson. However, this material raises quite a lot of questions. The man continues to pester, annoy and harrass a woman who - and this must have been clear almost from the beginning - is a victim rather than a perpetrator, to wit an inoffensive citizen who was foully raped and had to resort to violence in order to save her very life. As the movie progresses, he drives her nearly out of her mind with worry and fear. And the problem here is that the movie rather suggests the male character is not a bad person : it continues to find reasons/excuses for his behaviour. I'm sorry, but a person who knowingly and willingly adds to the misery of a victim IS a bad person, period.
In the movie, the woman keeps quiet about the rape, presumably because she can't face the additional stress of talking about her ordeal to a lot of (male) strangers, many of whom would be sure to make critical remarks about sexy nylons or short skirts. She's also fearful of harming her marriage, given the fact that she's married to a jealous and domineering husband liable to explode in a variety of unlovely ways. All over the world, hundreds of thousands of women have found themselves in a similar situation - and the problem continues to this day. Tragically, rape still features among the most underreported crimes.
A final note : the movie includes a great performance by Annie Cordy, in an unusually serious and complex role.