Before the rain is not just a beautiful film that
focuses on human conflicts and love relationships made impossible due to
the radicalism and bellicose atmosphere which has spread through the
Balkans during the last three years. Divided into three different stories,
Milcho Manchevski's first feature-length film also has a particular
aesthetical approach. The structure of Before the rain relies essentially
on an aesthetics of paradox. Instead of looking for logical coherence,
Manchevski emphasizes contradiction and strangeness.
....Words, Faces and Photos are indeed very simple
episodes in themselves, and quite similar between each other, the script
is basically the same for all of them: the announcement and the
expectation of the rain, the apearent casuality of the meetings and the
disagreements an, finally, the tragedy - which is symbolized by the rain.
Together, they form an allegorical circle: each one can be considered the
first, the second or the last in relation to the other two. The circle,
however, is not perfect, "not round", because the stories present in a
similar - not identical - way the same kind of facts. In spite of being
linked, the parts also remain independent. Logically speaking, each part
only makes sense when isolated. The group, that means, the circle as a
whole is contradictory.
....The contradictions regard the sequence of the facts
when we try to establish a correct order between the episodes. The
question is that there is no "correct" order of the episodes in Before the
rain. All of the three orders are as possible as they are impossible,
depending on the way one looks at them. Manchevski does not stop inverting
the positions of before and after, establishing, therefore, a paradoxal
temporality. Manchevski conceives time as a circular entity, without
beginning or end, in such a way that one cannot know how long it takes
from one fact to another. As a matter of fact, it is not possible to find
out if any time passes at all: the end of Photos corresponds to the
beginning of Words as a literal repetition and an indication of the
circle.
....These
are the orders:
....I.
Words, Faces, Photos
....In
Words, the young Macedonian orthodox monk Kiril Kirkov mentions the
possibility of escaping with the Albanese Muslim Zamira to London, where
they could stay with his uncle Aleksander. In Faces, Kiril makes a
telephone call to Aleksander, without succeeding in localizing him. In
Photos, Anne goes to the Macedonian small village in order to meet his
lover Aleksander Kirkov, after their sudden separation in Faces. All these
connections justify the sequence.
....On the other hand, we also have signals that make
this order absurd. Aleksander's funeral takes place in Words, but he is
alive in Faces. In this story, we have Zamira's death confirmed by
photographs. If that is true, how can she be alive in Photos?
....II.
Faces, Photos, Words
....Photos comes after Words, since the things that
happen to Aleksander in the village confirm his decision of abandoning the
career as photographer, which was taken in Faces. The end of Photos is
identical to the beginning of Words.
....This order can also be considered contradictory. The
monastery is in peace in Photos; nevertheless, Faces indicates, through
the mentioned photographs, that Kiril has already left the place.
Aleksander dies in Photos and in buried in Words, but in this story his
nephew says he is alive.
....III.
Photos, Words, Faces
....Zamira's
love affair with Aleksander's cousin and persecution corroborates Photos
coming before Words. Faces follows this story because of Kiril's telephone
call and the photographs.
....More contradictions can be found: It definitely rains
in Photos, on the other hand, in Words, people are still waiting for the
rain. If Aleksander appears dead in Words, he could not be alive in
Faces... but he is.
....It is important to point out that the very titles of
the episodes are denied by their respective content. Words is indeed an
apology of silence, not withstanding the sentence of the old priest,
referred to the idyllic Macedonian landscape: "This beauty should be
lauded with words".
....According to Zamira's last gestures, we presume that
Kiril will return to the vote of silence. In Faces, Manchevski shows how
deformed human features can become. Madonna's face on a photo is deformed
by a blur of spilled coffee. This event looks like an anticipation of the
appearance of Nick's face at the moment of his death. Photos pictures the
refuse of the profession by the famous photographer Aleksander Kirkov. In
Bosnia, his camera "killed a man", as a result of his obsession in
obtaining "scenes of action". So great is the contempt towards his
Pulitzer Prize, that he utilizes the book written in his honor as a mere
support for the leg of the table in his old house.
...."Eye by
eye", exposes the energical Mitre in Words, who justifies his desire of
revenge based on 500 years of Muslim control of the region. In the small
Macedonian village, as well as for the Macedonian Catholics and for the
Muslim Albaneses, the accumulated hate has just reached its point of
ebullition. The "center" of the circle that symbolizes Before the rain is
located in the middle of Faces; it is a sentence spoken by Aleksander,
which works as an authentical historical portrait of the conflict Balkans:
"War is the rule, peace is an exception". The sentence is central,
equidistant from the points of the circular surface, not only in the sense
of being legitimate to all the main facts showed in the film, but also
because these facts converge towards it.
....Before the rain is tuned to the sounds of disharmony,
absurdity and pain - typical traces of the war. Peace is a mere exception.
This becomes clear through the scenes of semi-anecdotal neutrality of the
UN soldiers, restrict to crossing the disputed areas in their white cars,
and "lending themselves only to the gathering of the corpses of those who
die in the conflicts", as the village's doctor says.
....The rain is an allegory of the tragedy. In all the
stories, the tragical denouement is announced, expected and consummated.
"Flies are already biting; it seems that it will rain; it is raining
already over there", reveals the old priest, that "had almost taken the
vote of silence", to the young monk Kiril Kirkov. He refers to the rain
that marks Aleksander's death, as well as the end of Photos and the
beginning of Words. The same painful spectacle will happen again, because
time cannot help circulating. In the paradoxal world of Before the rain,
created and moved through the calamities that distinguish human existence,
there is only one postulate that remains standing: it is necessary to
rain.
From www.manchevski.com.mk
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