A taxi, a heatwave, and the loudest silence you've ever heard.
Michael Keenan's film Rain takes us in from the main title to the payoff of its namesake. The heat and the throbbing music provide the indolent rhythm of the troubled life of Alex the cabdriver. The story is simple: New York as Hell. The noise, the sensory intrusions and the blistering heat don't stop those who can't leave from going about their business, forcing them into their own worlds sometimes to extreme degrees. Alex keeps moving, her taxi as metaphor, and waiting. Waiting is an active verb here. The sound effects, score, and chaotic images of New York captured by Robert LoScalzo come alive as the workings of Alex's interior anguish as well as the real exterior of the City.
Sound
The score and city noise become Alex's unraveling psyche.
Cinematography
LoScalzo's chaotic images turn NYC into a pressure cooker.
Acting
Pruitt's contained performance makes waiting feel dangerous.
Director
Michael Keenan
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
This micro-budget obscurity barely screened outside festival circuits, making it a genuine lost artifact of 1980s American indie cinema.
Keenan's sensory-overload approach anticipated later 'city symphony' films but with a distinctly feminine, working-class gaze rarely seen in the era's downtown NYC cinema scene.
US
