My Friend Rain (2010) dir. Robert Millis

Another great film from the Sublime Frequencies stable, filmed throughout Southeast Asia by Robert Millis between 2002-2004, My Friend Rain is an abstract homage to the endless monsoon cycles of rebirth and destruction. Dreamy musical segments, fleeting glimpses, odd sounds, temple shrines, tropical backdrops, decay, death, languid afternoon rains, and mysterious celebratory events take the viewer from soaked mornings in the lowlands of the Irrawaddy delta to humid nights on the streets of Isan province. Two tracks originally released on Millis’ Leaf Music, Drunks, Distant Drums CD from 2002 can now be witnessed for the first time in this film: an amazing elephant mahout playing a song on a leaf with his mouth and a Burmese marionette orchestra musician performing expertly on tuned drums. The overall experience is an impressionistic collage of sight and sound captured live and in the moment on location in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar.