The sound of a shovel rings through your ears in certain points of Elham Ehsas’ powerful, go-for-broke short film, There Will Come Soft Rains. This is a film that deals with a huge subject but it’s filtered through a family conflict. If your sister told you that she wanted to move the corpse of your father before the sea levels rise up, what would you do? Ehsas’ film is unexpected and you might gasp at some of his characters’ actions, but, by the end, you want to get your hands dirty.
There is something instinctual when it comes to what Mira wants to do when her concerns over climate change become too huge to ignore. She is seemingly estranged from her sister, Fatima, or there are, at least, some tensions there. When I thought about how Mira wants to dig up her father’s grave out of love, it made me think about how familial bonds will make us go to any lengths to show respect. In the way, though, is a lot of bureaucratic tape that feels unnecessary.
“This film is about being pushed to do something unnatural–digging up your father’s grave–because you have this feeling that the rising sea levels are going to drown him,” Ehsas says. “You can’t visit him, especially because she is a Muslim character, and, in Islam, it’s so frowned upon. It goes with this whole idea that we are now being pushed to do the unnatural, beause nature is becoming unnatural. With the world changing, it’s almost a vengeance, and the bureaucracy keeps gettig in the way.”
Soft Rains take a massive issue in the world but translates it through one character’s moral dilemma. Just think of how many more Miras there are in the world who feel the urge to break the rules to break down the system. Ehsas explains how one organization wants to turn storytelling on its head when it comes to expanding our minds on serious issues.
“We were honored to work with an organization called Climate Spring, who funded the project,” he explains. “They had this funding round in which they invited filmmakers to make a film about climate change but not make it about climate change. That’s something that they do really well with such consideration, and they don’t want all the stories to be about doom and gloom but through human, emotional drama that speaks to that part of humanity. For a long time, we’ve had scientists and researchers giving us numbers, but now it’s time for artists, filmmakers, poets and musicians to come in and also contribute to start a dialogue. Climate Spring is so good at championing these stories that bring other layers to climate storytelling where it isn’t purely about facts but about how we connect as humans.”
Mira and Fatima’s father is seen and heard a few times throughout Ehsas’ film, but the director uses his presence to marvelous effect. In one motif, we see him reading a story to his daughters but then the same story is told again to a youngster but, this time, told from Mira’s voice. This is a spiritual ghost story.
“I wanted to make a film that was also about sisterhood and grief and mourning,” he says. “The emotional heart is the sisters and their relationship to their father and how memory brings them back together. One of my favorite scenes is that storytelling scene when the past and the present kind of collide and overlap with one another. There’s such beauty in telling a story like that. I’m a big fan of storyes that start off where the characters keep failing and failing, but, at the end, something happens that brings it full circle.”
Ehsas’ last short film, Yellow, was contained in a clothing shop, and we could feel the fabric on the walls closing in. Soft Rains opens up the story to the world at large, and it’s a truly sensory experience. In a funeral scene, wind hits the face of Mira before she leave and we see her physically dipping her hands in water. It’s like the earth is pleading with us to open our hearts and ears.
“We wanted the planet to be a character, so we brought in a lot of sounds for the earth,” Ehsas says. “You’ve got the soil and the dirt, but we also have thunder and water. It’s almost like Mother Nature is intruding slowly into not just her world but her psyche and pushing her and pushing her and pushing her. I wanted it to become an overwhelming force that she felt. Nature can swallow you up. She is forgiving and also grants us second chances, but it’s about whether we deserve it or not.”
What Mira and Fatima do at the end of Soft Rains should be experienced without spoiler, but it is a badass moment. If you would have seen this happening in real life, you would want to join–even if you knew the circumstances would follow you.
“When we were thinking about the ending, the words that I kept thinking about were rock and roll,” he says. “Someone once told me that a feature film is a win by points but a short film is a win by knockout–I’m always looking for that big punch.”
