#436: MANCHEVSKI, Milcho: Before The Rain (1994)

MANCHEVSKI, Milcho (Macedonia)

Before The Rain [1994]

Spine #436
DVD

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 Šerbedžija) to paint a portrait of simmering 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 powerful laments on the futility of war.

113 minutes
Color

Stereo

in Macedonian, English, and Albanian

1:78:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2008

Director/Writer

Milcho Manchevski was 35 when he wrote and directed Before the Rain.

Born in Skopje, Macedonia in 1959, Manchevski emigrated to the U.S. and studied film at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale. He’s known for his (still) photography and writing, and cut his teeth directing music videos:

1. Partners in Kryme: Undercover
2. Arrested Development: Tennessee
3. Main Source: Fakin’ the Funk
4. George Lamond: Baby, I Believe in You
5. Black Sheep: Similak Child

before directing this — his debut film.

The Film

“Can’t we all just get along?” — Rodney King

Apparently not.

The circle is not round.

Manchevski’s brilliant film begins with a close-up of hands picking ripe tomatoes. Hands are very important — they can hold fruit, other hands, photographs — and most disturbingly — guns.

The human beings intent on killing each other are no different than Cain and Abel. It is the sad history of our race. And Manchevski doesn’t really care if you can figure out who is who — in fact, one needs to watch the film (at least) twice to even begin to discern the arc of the characters, because the film is circular — and it is an imperfect loop, by design. Time is a plaything.

The credits just list the four main characters, but the film is populated with minor characters who are just as fascinating and impenetrable as the stars.

Before the Rain is divided into three parts:

1. Words
2. Faces
3. Pictures

We first meet Kiril (Grégoire Colin, a French actor), who is picking those tomatoes. He is a Macedonian monk, who has taken a vow of silence.

The plot thickens with the disturbing arrival of Zamira (Labina Mitevska), an Albanian girl who could easily be mistaken for a boy …

We meet Anne (Katrin Cartlidge, English actor) at the very end of Part 1, as she becomes the central character in Part 2.

And last but hardly least, the amazing Croatian actor, Rade Šerbedžija (Aleksandar). [One will note that there is a lead from each country of the three major producers … Manchevski claims it’s a coincidence, but admits it didn’t hurt bringing in the money!]

There is no spoiling this film — and revealing almost any detail would constitute a grave sin on the part of the reviewer. But the film is full of wonderful poetic rhymes; and to name just two or three won’t give too much away:

• Look for the swatting of a fly in each part.
• Look for it to be raining when it’s not really raining …
• Look for his Hitchcock-like cameo; but not as a living being (cryptic enough?)

Film Rating (0-60):

58

The Extras

The Booklet

Sixteen-page booklet featuring an essay by film scholar Ian Christie.

“Before the Rain brought a vision of ‘Balkan conflict’ to the world that caused a sensation in the mid-1990s, winning the Golden Lion in Venice and an Academy Award nomination. Five years of increasingly horrific news from the former Yugoslavia, with fierce fighting and massacres in Croatia and Bosnia, made Milcho Manchevski’s searing yet lyrical film timely to a degree that few filmmakers have ever achieved. But this is far from a documentary treatment of Balkan violence, and the country that Manchevski put on the map — his native Macedonia — was in fact the only Balkan state at that time not to have been engulfed by war or ethnic conflict.” [that would come later, in 2001 …]

Commentary

Featuring film scholar Annette Insdorf and Manchevski.

A most helpful commentary by the director and the great film scholar Insdorf, who gently leads Manchevski down revelatory paths in which he gives up his secrets.

Video interview

With actor Šerbedžija.

If you don’t know his work, you might remember him as Milich, the creepy owner of the costume shop in Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut (1999).

Here he opens up about how his character reflects his self in being unable to “take sides.”

Behind the Scenes in Macedonia

A short 1993 documentary about the making of Before the Rain.

The difficulties of dealing with a multinational crew and a few scenes of Manchevski at work.

Soundtrack selections

Featuring the music of the Macedonian band Anastasia.

1. Time Never Dies (credit sequence)
2. Funeral Theme
3. In a London cab
4. Pass Over
5. Death of Aleksandar
6. The Circle is not Round

On-set footage

Theatrical trailers, and stills galleries of production photos, storyboards, and letters.

Selection

Of Manchevski’s photography collection Street.

Music video

Of Manchevski’s music video for Arrested Development: Tennessee.

Extras Rating (0-40):

38

58 + 38 =

96

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