In a year of serious films, it is a treat to experience Rains Over Babel, a colorful queer Afro-Colombian retro-futuristic tropical punk assault on the senses. Director Gaia del Sol’s debut film premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and I was able to see it at the Instituto Cervantes in Hollywood on Thursday night. Based in and around Babel, a late-night neon-lit dive/cabaret bar in Cali, Colombia, Rains Over Babel is a modern-day queer retelling of Dante’s Inferno that tackles social issues with a diverse cast from South America that is highly entertaining and is Colombia’s submission for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards.
Based in and around Babel, the dive/cabaret bar in Cali, we first meet El Boticario, (Santiago Pineda Prado) one of its barmen, and his mute girlfriend Erato (Sofia Buenaventura). He in turn introduces us to a cast of fabulous characters, all beautiful, fashionable and athletic, whose lives interconnect late at night at Babel.
Chief protagonist is La Flaca (Saray Rebollendo), a powerful, divine diva with a huge afro. She is a gambling card player and holds court at Babel. The various characters must gamble years of their lives with her. If they lose, she either controls their lives for many years, or they die.
Dante (Felipe Aguilar Rodriguez) is her fixer/grim reaper and guides each victim to the next stage of their lives. Burly Jacob (William Hurtado) is the angst-ridden son of cabaret troupe who performs at Babel. He is coached by two drag divas: Darla Experiment (Jhon Bayron Quintero Valencia) and Baobab (Josue Emanuel Ramirez Molina).
Salai (John Alex Costillo) owns the bar and is heavily in debt to loan sharks who threaten his life if he doesn’t repay them imminently. His only hope to repay his debt is with the forthcoming sell-out performance of star attraction El Callegueso (Jacobo Velez). The problem is that El Callegueso has disappeared.
Salai’s son Timbi (Jose Manuel Mojica) and Babel biker chick Babel Uma known as “Deep Purple” (Celina Biurrun) set off to try and find him, together with her wise-ass talking salamander Rosy. Roma (Roman Escobar) and Monet (Johan Zapata) live together – Roma is a dealer and Monet takes too many of Roma’s drugs, leading him into the hands of La Flaca as he hovers near death.
This rebellious set of misfits are all on separate journeys for self-acceptance and/or eternal damnation. Opening in a surreal aquamarine-smeared home shared by our narrator, Botocatio, and his mute partner, Erato. A bartender at Babel, Botocatio introduces us to Dante, who’s been collecting dying souls for the grim reaper La Flaca for twenty years.
Dante doesn’t remember where he came from, only that he was a soldier. Most moving is the soul-collecting soldier Dante (Felipe Aguilar Rodríguez) chasing down a rogue spirit while trying to piece together his past life. In this slice of purgatory film, he spends this day learning about his past
Rains Over Babel captures the urban landscape of Colombian ghettos and club crawls, tossed in with some magical realism, makes it feel like fantasy. Director Gala de Sol calls the dingy aesthetic “tropical-punk,” with its plethora of vibrant palettes, crazed steampunk costumes, and carnal exoticized sets. The graffitied buildings and dark alleyways of South American nightlife are filled with hidden sexuality and dogmatic religion. Sometimes evoking the surreal splendor of Salvador Dali, we hover between the beauty of daydreaming and the side-effects of drug tripping.
In the Old Testament, Babel was a spiraling tower in the center of Babylon, reaching up to the heavens. For Colombian creative director Gala del Sol, Babel is a hyperactive, tropical-punk dive bar that’s more than meets the eye. Existing as an almost a checkpoint between this world and the next, the grungy raw alkaline of zesty flamenco and alleyway garage rock is electrified. You will find it impossible to look away from the scenes that flash before your eyes. With strong casting, great art direction and cinematography, fabulous sets and outfits, and abundant surreal moments, you too will find it difficult to leave Babel.
With so many surreal aspects like the talking salamander, a sex hotel and BDSM clad little people, Rains Over Babel has a warm underlying message about believing in yourself, staying true to yourself, and forgiving yourself when you need to. It is about healing more than about death and the need to resist religious negativity and homophobia. Gambling with La Flaca is a dangerous thing but for most of the characters in this surreal tale, hope is there in spite of their angst and past trauma. Gaia del Sol’s film is an experience not to be missed.
