Santa Barbara Film Festival Ends on Rainy Note : Movies: The 6-year-old event struggles to carve out a consistent identity.

It may have been an omen that a hard rain fell on the sold-out closing film screening of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. In a city obsessed with water, or lack of it, and for a festival obsessed with budget, or lack of it, the twin downpour bade well for the sixth festival--reportedly its most successful.

On the other hand, the fact that the screening was “La Femme Nikita,” which opened in Los Angeles last week, speaks to the fact that, while the festival is well-planted by now, it is still struggling to carve out a consistent identity.

The 6-year-old festival remains international in scope but leans toward English-language fare. One segment within the festival was a British contingent consisting of productions from the BBC, which “saved what was left of the British film industry,” said curator Christopher Toyne.

The best of the lot was “102 Boulevard Housman,” a hauntingly delicate piece starring Alan Bates as Marcel Proust, an invalid but vital genius ensconced in his cork-lined room. The Kim Novak tribute evening featured Tony Palmer’s beautiful but windy British film “The Children.”

The scoop factor is always important to a festival, and while this one had its share of premieres, it also banked on also-rans and TV filler. The opening night featured a premiere of the HBO film “The Josephine Baker Story” a mere week before its small-screen debut. Charlton and Fraser Heston presented their TNT production of the Sherlock Holmes tale “Crucifer of Blood,” which failed to translate to the large screen at all.

As usual, the jewels were tucked in the cracks of the schedule. Its three Soviet entries were all strong. “Raspad” deals, in an engrossing way, with the Chernobyl accident and the government’s lumbering response to it; “One Night With Stalin” is a ruddy dinnerside look at the notorious Soviet leader, and “The Body” takes a long, melodramatic view of adolescent excess.

One of the most original and artful entries was the roughly stylish Hungarian film “Little but Tough,” directed by Ferene Grunwalsky, and British director Anthony Minghella’s States-bound “Truly, Madly, Deeply,” a variation on the “Ghost” theme.

Other highlights: Adam Rifkin’s twisted but somehow tender “The Dark Backward,” Bertrand Tavernier’s “Daddy Nostalgia” and the 2-year-old “Reunion,” Jerry Schatzberg’s treatment of a Harold Pinter script about the seeds of Nazi dread.