Exit the miles of snow and missing children: the Scandinavian small screen intends to impose itself on a world market yet saturated, and it makes it clear with The Rain.
Subtly nicknamed The Bretagne by some proud southerners on the Netflix facebook page, the new "survival" made in Danmark of the platform has everything to seduce. Or at least, that's the case on paper.
"Thunder and rain wreaked such havoc,
Let there remain in my garden very few vermilion fruits. – The enemy, Charles Baudelaire.
Water wets, rain kills
Imagine. As a young high school student preparing the equivalent of the Danish TPE, you are about to conclude with the handsome man a little cliché of your class when your father comes to pick you up. If the first minute of the series may be reminiscent of an American comedy, the sequel is worthy of the drama. The father knows something that no one can suspect: rain would contain a virus, and simple contact with the skin would lead to a firm and somewhat permanent death. The girl and her brother are therefore sheltered from this ecological disaster in a bunker belonging to a mysterious company employing their father. Left to their own devices, the children will live in self-sufficiency until, lacking food, they will be forced to return to the surface. A difficult return to reality for these children who have become adults (or teenagers), leaving no choice but to ally with other survivors in order to find their father and obtain answers on the causes of the near-extinction of the human species. You might as well not do things by halves.
Denmark, a country of ecology and recycling
Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed. Worthy representative of a cultural vision of the future not very optimistic, The Rain takes all the codes of post-apocalyptic dramas without ever really changing the situation. Informed minds will recognize the scripted basis of the British series Survivors, stopped by BBC One at the end of its second season, or some iconic urban shots of Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later . We won't talk about the fact that we saw enough trees in The Walking Dead to make us immune to any desire to drop everything to become lumberjacks in Canada.
The Rain tends to stand out from the crowd by its resolutely Nordic atmosphere specific to Scandinavian cinema, which many have been inspired by without ever being able to perceive the nuances, except for the excellent surprise named Tin Star. Thus, the vast abandoned areas left to a nature that has become hostile become a weapon, a character in its own right contributing to the establishment of an oppressive, chilling atmosphere. The sound atmosphere, let's face it, rather well chosen, punctuates the series of songs of MØ, Cigarettes After Sex, Agnes Obel or Perfume Genius. Musical choices resolutely focused on youth, but presenting a real maturity and a real weight when compared with the atmosphere of the series.
"Adolescence is the time when you have to choose between living and dying."
The quote from the Saint-Etienne writer Hafid Aggoune has rarely taken on so much meaning. The fact of following teenagers forced to quickly become adults without having been able to prepare for it is interesting insofar as it allows a great evolution of the characters. The viewer can identify with them by discovering the world through their eyes imbued with a form of naivety and innocence that has become rare as civilization lives its last moments. Unfortunately, like the first episode of the series The 100, the incoherent actions of the characters and their manias are more reminiscent of an initiatory teen movie than a real "survival" claiming heir to The Road.
If The Rain tends to cause binge-watching among viewers, the series does not seem to leave an indelible memory. Distinguished neither by the originality of its scenario, nor by the charisma of its characters, it stands out by the attention paid to the visual and sound atmosphere. And we're not going to lie, we're having a good time. To watch armed with a plaid, with the rain.
