Before the Rain (The Criterion Collection)
by Milcho Manchevski
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Grégoire Colin, Joe Gould, Peter Needham, Phyllida Law, Rade SerbedzijaDirector: Milcho Manchevski
Brand: Image Entertainment
Cinematographer: Darius Khondji
Cinematographer: Manuel Teran
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 103 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-06-24
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of Before the Rain (The Criterion Collection)
Movie Review: A soul-stirring indictment of ethnic hatred. Ominous, poetic, brilliant film.
Summary: 5 Stars
Finally, BEFORE THE RAIN is on DVD. Best of all, the folks at Criterion picked up this marvelous film and have restored it to pristine quality. The digital transfer was supervised and approved by director Milcho Manchevski. It is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1. The sound is in Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0. There's an accompanying audio commentary and an interview with Rade Serbedzija who played Aleksander (more about him later) in the film. Also included is an essay by film scholar Ian Christie and the original trailer and few other goodies.
What's BEFORE THE RAIN about? A simple synopsis of the film will not suffice. Essentially it is a poetic, albeit tragic look at war and love in the Balkans of the 1990s made by Macedonian director, Milcho Manchevski.
Here's why it's a brilliant film. The photography and music from the Macedonian group "Anastasia" -- Before The Rain (Pred Dozhdot): Original Motion Picture Soundtrack -- is breathtaking and lingers with you days after watching/listening to it. The tripartite narrative structure challenges the linearity of history by linking unsuspecting people, events and objects in a cause-and-effect context. Lastly, it explores how religious, gender and ethnic differences in Macedonia shape both love and politics, even in a global context.
Like all film-makers, Manchevski tells his story with Words, Faces and Pictures. In BEFORE THE RAIN these three components become three parts of the film, in which characters and events are intertwined. In Words, a young Macedonian monk named Kiril (Grégoire Colin) from a 12th-century monastery, has taken a vow of silence. He discovers an Albanian girl named Zamira (Labina Mitevska) hiding in his room. He protects her and dire consequences result. Ironically, he speaks no `words' and when he breaks his vow of silence, neither one understands the other's language. In Faces, a London photo editor, Anne (Katrin Cartlidge), is torn between two men: her estranged husband (Jay Villiers), for whom she feels little love, and Aleksander (Rade Serbedzija), a Pulitzer prize-winning war photographer. Her personal crisis is overshadowed when a tragedy unexpectedly occurs in a London restaurant. Both photographers initially detach themselves emotionally from their subjects (the faces) they photograph, but eventually each is confronted in a personal way and must `face' the consequences of their actions. In Pictures, Aleksander leaves London to return to his childhood village in Macedonia. But things have changed considerably in his 16-year absence. The violence and carnage he witnessed as a frontline photographer (notably the death of a Bosnian POW he may have accidently caused) is inescapable; ethno-religious differences have turned neighbours into enemies. When Hanna, his childhood love from a neighbouring village, seeks his help to protect her (their implied) daughter (Zamira), Aleksander is thrust into an ethnic conflict which has tragic consequences. Unbeknownst to the viewer in Words, we eventually learn Aleksander is also Kiril's uncle whom Kiril discusses in a previous scene with Zamira. The big `picture', if you will, segues all of these people and events into one.
In structuring the film this way, Manchevski demonstrates the interconnectivity of globalism, both its innocuous and menacing aspects. In Words, a mentally unstable Macedonian machine-guns a cat while listening to the music of the Beastie Boys on his Walkman. In Faces, a woman passing through a cemetery in London, where Anne and Aleksander are discussing their future plans, listens to the same song on her Walkman. In another scene, the ethnic violence observed in Macedonia crosses international borders and spills over into a London restaurant when a Balkan nationalist attacks a waiter. After being ejected, he returns armed with a gun and randomly kills several diners, including Anne's estranged husband.
Manchevski also shows how women, regardless of ethnicity, religion or nationality, are subordinated. This is especially the case with Zamira. Although she appears very briefly in Words and Pictures, she is the catalyst that sets in motion the cycle of violence at the centre of BEFORE THE RAIN. She is an Albanian Muslim, who unlike her mother Hanna, rebels against the expectations imposed on Muslim women, defies her grandfather and enrages her brother by challenging the norm. The events that lead to her death in Words, unfold in Pictures. Zamira is accused of luring and of killing Stojan (a Macedonian). In Words, her grandfather alludes to it. Whether the encounter was voluntary or involuntary is not revealed but Stojan's womanising would suggest that Zamira could have been raped. The violence Zamira encounters, and the subordination required of Hanna parallels the humiliation suffered by Christian Macedonian women. Neither religious tradition provides women parity with men, particularly with regard to sexuality. In Pictures, Stojan's wife is forced to serve dinner to him and his family as he makes sexual overtures to the school teacher. In Faces, Anne's estranged husband implies she should resign her position, have the baby and become a simple housewife. Ironically, Aleksander asks Anne to go with him to Macedonia and raise a family.
Insofar as religion is concerned, Manchevski portrays it as one of the causes for ethnic violence rather than the solution. The love ethic which is at the heart of both Christian and Muslim tradition is superceded by the invidious ethic of an eye for an eye. Mitre, the leader of the Macedonian militia, makes this clear to the abbot in Words, when he is tracking down Zamira. He asserts that 500 years of history justify his right to avenge the death of one of their own. In Faces, Manchevski graphically illustrates the notion of an eye for an eye when Anne's husband is shot in the eye by the Balkan nationalist. In Pictures, Aleksander's own people shoot him while trying to save Zamira, even after pleading to have the accusations against her taken to a legal court. The story comes full circle.
This is hammered out in one of the single most powerful images -- and there many -- at the beginning in Words, village children have made a circle out of twigs and placed two docile turtles in it. They've created gun turrets on the shell of the turtles, placed them in mock battle and are shouting, "Go Ninja turtle, kill him." The scene cuts to the monks in some ritual involving prayers and incense. The camera cuts back to a single turtle in the circle, where bullets have been sprinkled and the twigs set afire; the bullets explode killing the turtle while the monks pray, oblivious to the event. In less than ten minutes, Manchevski introduces us to the central themes of the film: violence, religion and taking sides.
Aleksander is the protagonist of this film. It's interesting to note he shares the namesake of another Macedonian - Alexander the Great. Not surprisingly too, he is similar to Alexander the Great. Both have experienced war, travelled much of the world, loved foreign women, mingled and adopted foreign customs, bridged cultural barriers, etc. Even in gallantry, they share a common heroic stature as defenders of the underdog, the vanquished. But alas, true to the more famous Alexander, the metaphorical one dies also at an early age.
Why Manchevski created such a character is pure conjecture, but I suspect it has something to do with the Eastern Orthodox concept of Alexander the Great as a pre-Christ figure -- a champion, a saviour, a martyr; in which case, Manchevski's Aleksander is certainly all of these. But his passionate and platonic love of humanity does not save any one, least of all himself; it only serves as a lesson.
This leads me to conclude that to break the circle of violence, ethno-religious hatred, wars in general, it seems as though Manchevski wants to say love is the way, but the reality is humanity is not ready to realise this incontrovertible truth.
Great film! Five stars in my estimate!
Summary of Before the Rain (The Criterion Collection)
The first film made in the newly independent Republic of Macedonia, Milcho Manchevski?s Before the Rain crosscuts the stories of an orthodox Christian monk (Grégoire Colin), a British photo agent (Katrin Cartlidge), and a native Macedonian war photographer (Rade ?erbed?ija) to paint a portrait of simmering, entrenched ethnic and religious hatred about to reach its boiling point. Made during the strife of the war-torn Balkan states in the nineties, this gripping triptych of love and violence is also a timeless evocation of the loss of pastoral innocence, and remains one of recent cinema?s most poetic evocations of the futility of war.DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES:
? New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Milcho Manchevski ? Audio commentary featuring Manchevski and film scholar Annette Insdorf ? New video interview with actor Rade ?erbed?ija ? Manchevski's award-winning music video for Arrested Development's "Tennessee" ? Stills galleries of Manchevski's photographs and on-set shots ? Theatrical trailer ? New and improved English subtitle translation ? PLUS: A new essay by film scholar Ian Christie ? More!
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