Review: “Tigers Can Be Seen in the Rain” But My Sister?

“What can I say?” asks Vittoria (Monica Vitti) of her lover in Michelangelo Antonioni’s L’Eclisse (1962). “There are times when holding a needle and thread, or a book, or a man, it’s all the same to me.”

After DVD-ing five of the maestro’s offerings in a rather brief period, I can confidently note that no one can surpass Antonioni when it comes to celebrating romantic and social dislocation in a world that might just end when you turn the corner. As for loving, supportive families, one must look elsewhere.

But if the latter is your need, try out writer/director Oscar Ruiz Navia’s unexpectedly comforting 15-minute docu-short, Tigers Can Be Seen in the Rain (Va Se Ven Los Tigres En La Luvia) that was showcased at this year’s New York Film Festival. Dealing with different sorts of dislocations — those of space, of time, of possibilities — the film bears up to numberless viewings, on each occasion rewarding you with new interpretations, often those intended by the director and others sired by your psyche. Consider Tigers a visual poem of sorts. Or a cinematic Rorschach test.

The short is comprised of discovered home movies shot over decades in Columbia, scenes now intercut with current Montreal locales where Navia relocated to write and study film. There are also voiceovers including one supplied by a Canadian spirit guide and there’s some piano tinkling by children letting loose on the ivories.

Please note that Tigers is a memorial to the director’s sister, Ana Maria Ruiz Navia, who died in 2023 at the age of 37.

“Ana Maria Ruiz Navia (whose nickname was Anita) used to be not only my sister but my producer,” Oscar emailed me. “We were partners at Contravía Films, our company, even as she got cancer and struggled with this illness. At the end, after she unfortunately passed away, I decided to make a movie about my loss and my new arrival in Montreal, where I moved to start a new chapter of my life. I had collected many WhatsApp voice messages in the last two years. This is how I started to create this film.”

Tigers opens with various static shots of barren railroad tracks in Montreal, although we hear the rumble of ghost trains going by. (Disembodied sounds of past journeys?) Various ill-kempt streets also devoid of the living are showcased next.

“I shot all the places surrounding my current apartment, literally places in my neighborhood,” Oscar recalls. “The juxtaposition [with the footage of my family and the audio] is because I moved to Montreal when Anita passed. So I had to deal with deep grief when I just arrived in a new country. I wanted to show my present throughout with image . . . and my past-memory throughout with sound.”

Cinematographer Charles Duquet, who along with Pablo Álvarez-Mesa, shot Tigers, added in a separate email: “The concept behind the location choices was simple. Since the beginning of his stay in Montreal, Oscar paid attention to the places he’d walk by every day. Since the passing of his sister, these public places also became spaces of mourning. Our initial goal was to portray these places with delicate and fixed images, gathering material that would allow him the freedom to find further meaning with his sound recordings and archives. During the shoot, Oscar and I would walk the city together and get to know each other through discussions about family, filmmaking and Montreal seasons. It was somewhat close to what we call in French a déambulation, a walk without a precise goal, or in this case a fixed shot list. Oscar had places he wanted to film, but the way we would film them was decided in the moment, depending on the weather, the time of day or whether there would be people (or not).”

Over one such shot taken when the grounded autumn leaves already had lost their colors, we hear Anita for the first time: “Well, my pretties. I’m gonna sleep now. I’m here with my mum. She is already asleep. I love you all very much and have a good rest.”

We afterward find ourselves at the Le Jardin de Sculptures Crépuscule (the Twilight Sculpture Garden). Rusted artwork atop a dozen or so concrete bases are easily mistakable at first glance to be tombstones for the creative dead.

Back to the past: the 14-year-old Anita is playing joyfully with a movie camera. She shoots herself in the mirror and swerves past the toilet into another room with family photos and paintings. Next it’s into her father’s office where Oscar is sitting at the desk.

She’s asked to shoot a closeup. “What’s a closeup?” Anita quickly learns and begins filming Oscar’s shoes and the mole on his arm and a dog with ticks. Great careers have often begun with home movies. Ask Spielberg.

Minutes later or earlier, the linear is forsaken here, the adult Anita leaves a tear-filled message on Oscar’s phone, calling him by his nickname: “Hey, Papeto, today I got my medical results. The disease is progressing negatively . . . However, the good thing is that I have full faith and I will do my best to recover. Let’s go for it.”

Skip to an amusement park, where all the siblings are together chatting about roller coasters. Older sister Carmen is at that moment behind the camera when she asks her sister who is then decades away from cancer: “Anita, what do you want to say for posterity?”

Alex chimes in: “Everything is for posterity.”

Finally, Marie-France, the aforementioned medium, arrives in voice only at the end of Tigers.

“This is a real recording of when I visited her when I just arrived in Montreal,” Oscar wrote. “We spoke in English because at the time my French was not the best. Marie-France unfortunately also passed away two months ago. She connected me with Anita when reading the tarot.”

Anita had not deserted Alex, Marie-France reported: “Anita says, ‘I will come during your sleep and will help your heart to be more happy… Why did Anita leave so early? Thirty is not a very old age. Actually, she has another reincarnation ready so she had to leave early to rest. She will rest most probably thirty to forty years which is nothing there.”

So four decades from now, Anita might come back and wouldn’t it be something if she in her new persona gets to view hers former self in Tigers. Oscar should have chimed in, “Everything is for posterity, especially the gift of film.”