Yahoo Lifestyle ‘Rains Over Babel’ Review: This Tropical, Queer Riff on Dante’s Inferno Is a Dazzling, Daring Provocation
There is no shortage of gonzo moments in Gala del Sol’s “Rains Over Babel.” A playful riff on Dante’s “Inferno,” the film is set in a fantastical retrofuturist vision of Cali, Colombia. The tropical city, here reimagined as Purgatory through the lens of queer joy, magical realism and a dash of ’90s punk, plays backdrop to an age-old tale where life and death are gambled over games of dice. Drag queens and demons roam neon-lit bars with equal poise. Kung fu fights casually unfold in BDSM dens. Brazen and bonkers alike, del Sol’s delightfully off-kilter quilt of a film is, if you let yourself succumb to its pleasures, a maximalist triumph.
In the global cultural imaginary, Colombia has long existed within two seemingly distinct though arguably complementary visions. On the one hand, beset by violence perpetrated by guerrillas, the state, sicarios, drug traffickers and the like, the country’s filmmakers have turned to a gritty, oft-bleak naturalism where death guides stories. On the other hand, buoyed by the possibilities of its natural beauty and the fantasies it could engender, the country has been synonymous with the promises of magical realism, offering such flights of fancy as necessary balms for understanding that very same violent history. In “Rains of Babel,” del Sol gleefully smashes the two together. She uses them both as flints to create a flaming concoction. The spectre of death that so often dominates Colombian storytelling turns into a chance to create a dizzying film about the lengths a group of misfits will go to avoid their eventual encounter with Death herself.
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The city’s grim reaper here is La Flaca (Saray Rebolledo), a wily and seductive Black woman who spends her days at a dive bar called Babel. She is at the heart of the labyrinthian plot that ends up involving a talking salamander, a dead poet, a budding drag queen, a kidnapped band leader, two star-crossed lovers, as well as a mysterious apothecary who spends his bartending shift at Babel as an unsuspecting observer as eager as we are to find out how (and if!) it will all come together in the end. And while it is the Apothecary (Santiago Pineda) — in painted nails, plenty of eyeliner and jewelry to match — who first introduces us to the colorful world del Sol is conjuring, it is Dante (Felipe Aguilar Rodríguez, all smoky eyes and a patterned fade to match) who sets the story in motion. The day we meet him is the day his contract with La Flaca is set to expire. No longer will the young man need to go collecting people’s souls once they die, a job he’s had for decades and which has since obscured his own past life and his very identity.
Dante’s day soon finds him encountering, among others, Monet (Johan Zapata), a poet who has died from an overdose, and Gian Salai (John Alex Castillo), who’s hoping his son Timbí (Jose Mojica) can keep the loan sharks coming for him at bay. Only Monet doesn’t want to go just yet and Timbí finds that the only way to help his father is to team up with Uma (Celina Biurrun), a desperate woman who’ll do whatever she needs to get another chance to play dice with La Flaca. All of those stories run parallel to the tender coming out story of the son of a preacher who moonlights as Darla Experiment (Bayron Quintero), a fierce queen whose supportive drag mother and sisters may finally give him the nudge he needs to live in his truth.
Del Sol deftly shuttles between these various plot lines, letting their outlandish sensibilities run amok. The writer-director plays host here to the kind of ebullient, fabulous party that Babel plays backdrop on any given night, with her actors swaying in tandem to the many rhythms and genres she throws at them from scene to scene. In this, she’s helped by Martín De Lima’s score: a shapeshifting curiosity that swings from salsa to Balkan music without missing a beat. The songs that make up the film’s soundtrack similarly run the gamut; a flamenco number anchors a melancholy moment of remembrance. while a glorious drag number is set to high-energy trap. And, perhaps knowing that a good party is all about curating the right vibes, del Sol keeps her costumes eye-popping (the Apothecary’s flared plants and loose shirt are divine), her sets delightfully campy (where else will you find dildos used as levers?), and even her sound effects wonderfully goofy (this is a cacophony of whooshes and growls, of zips and grunts).
But ultimately what makes “Rains Over Babel” sing (in ways more figurative than literal, though music is key to its climax) is the way it reworks well-worn tales into a joyous and extravagant carnival of long lost lovers and absent fathers, doting mothers and sinewy sirens. The film insists on imagining a queerer, kinder world — not one that disavows the dangers and violence that lurk in every corner (bigotry here emerges as the real villain of the piece), but instead finds beauty in resilience and joy in resistance. As one character puts it, “Sometimes the best thing is to jump into the void, and let what has to burn… burn.” And, boy, does “Rains Over Babel” burn. Its crackling embers, bedazzled glitter and dances to salsa Caleña beats soothe and heal in equal measure, but also implore audiences to join in on the fun. And how could you not with a party like that?
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