In "Ils "(1970) an overambitious attempt at exposing the "cutural Malthusianism of the bourgeoisie Simon set his standards too high .
"Il pleut toujours où c'est mouillé"( It always rain when it's wet = unto those that have ,shall more s be given) is a much more accessible work , closer to Yves Boisset at a time the political movie made more and more its presence felt in the seventies .
It depicts the atmosphere of a small village in south -west of France during an election campaign ; it pits the popularity-seeking speeches , the false promises of the candidates against the reality of the life of the farmers who find it hard to make both ends meet and who dumps their milk into the river , protesting against the price they buy it (and the large profit margins when it's sold in the supermarkets); the village has become a place where they're always at each other's throats : one farmer whose tractor is bust , can be given another one easily,should he "behave himself" ,that is to say not to go to those "commies meetings" and vote for the "right" candidate (disgusted,he tells his "protector" : will you go with me into the poll booth and make sure I select the right ballot paper?)
Although not still really involved in the political world as they are today ,women know better : the farmer's wife knows that no tractor will be given to her naive husband for nothing. The best moment of the film belongs to her : a TV report was made about her and is broadcast : as she watches her picture on the screen, she wonders :"have I said that? "(TV reports are watered down,even doctored) ,and when she says (on the telly) she's happy, reality is a horse of a different color indeed.
The schoolteacher ,while not taking sides politically speaking , tells the union man that they are nor really revolutionary;in her classroom ,she wears no bra, and she teaches her pupils about the birth of a child, which was daring in 1975 ; one feels a true friendship between this educated woman and the farmer's wife who,though clever,had to quit school when she was young to work and get married , a friendship and a solidarity which do not exist on the male side.
Like in Yves Boisset's works, it sometimes falls into the "everything is black and white trap" ,it's didactic, talky and too cinema verité to gain mass appeal ,but towards the end ,it avoids one of the clichés of the post-May 68 ideology : the police ,who appear towards the end of the movie,are not obligatory the enemy :the gendarmes, knowing very well that twenty persons lie ,turn a blind eye to the incident because ,anyway ,the victim is a blackjack.
