Sunday, July 31, 2016

8. Before the Rain


"This is one of the year's best films (1994), a brilliant directorial debut for a young man named Milcho Manchevski, born in Macedonia, educated at Southern Illinois University and now a New Yorker who made award-winning MTV videos before returning home to make this extraordinary film. Work like this is what keeps me going, month after month and film after film: After the junk with Chevy Chase and Adam Sandler, this is a reminder of the nobility that film can attain.

The movie is made in three parts, two in Macedonia, one in London. The story circles back on itself, something like 'Pulp Fiction,' and there is a paradox, a character who seems to be dead at a time he is still alive. Manchevski was not influenced by Quentin Tarantino; they were making their films simultaneously, and in 'Before the Rain' the circular structure has a deeper purpose; it shows that the cycle of hate and bloodshed will go on year after year, generation after generation, unless somehow men find the will to break with it."  --Excerpt from a full Rober Ebert review on RogerEbert.com

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