A small isolated village in the highlands of Mexico is suffering a protracted drought. The shaman has been predicting rain but the members of the village council are losing faith in his powers to talk to the gods. There is word of a solitary diviner who lives in the mountains and still knows the ways of the ancients.
The village leaders seek out his help and a mute boy secretly follows them. The diviner takes them on a journey into the unknown, which bothers the village chief who is skeptical about this stranger. They travel through the jungle, cross over the top of a dangerous waterfall, and then descend into a cave for water to use in the ceremony to invoke Chac, the rain god.
Rolando Klein, the writer and director of this 1974 film, has great respect for these indigenous peoples, their religious quest, and their rituals. The nonprofessional actors in Chac: The Rain God are all very intense especially Pablo Canché Balam as the mysterious diviner. There is real tension in the drama when the village chief becomes convinced that the man they have chosen to be their savior is really a witch doctor. The film's final sequences culminating in an elaborate ritual back at the village are quite amazing and filled with a mixture of mystery and dread.
