Before the Rain - (The Criterion Collection) (1994) Review

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(More customer reviews)I never grow tired of watching BEFORE THE RAIN. It is, first, a stunningly beautiful piece of cinematography. The camera pans natural vistas, churches, London streets, and the faces of the interlocking characters with sensitivity, wisdom, and love. The three parts of the film mesh with perfect paradox, underscoring the recurring theme that time is not a circle. We see the young, the old, the weak, the strong, the living, and the dead all intermingling with an incoherent rap song which blasts from speakers the world over. The pacing is ideal; the plot is ingenious; the message is eternal. BEFORE THE RAIN should be reissued on videocassette and offered on DVD. It moves me as much as any film I've ever seen. Even American high-school students are captivated by it, and that in itself in a small miracle!

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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, 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 Šerbedžija • 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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Ulysses' Gaze (1997) Review

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(More customer reviews)...and you'll be rewarded. Several of the reviewers below expressed problems with the pacing of this film -- one even went so far as to charge that Angelopoulos has created a 'pale imitation' of a Tarkovsky film with his long shots &c. While I could definitely see some parallels with Tarkovsky's work (the aforementioned long shots; the interplay between past & present, dream & reality; the non-linear progression of the story), I would hardly denigrate the director's efforts as a 'pale imitation'. I won't doubt for a moment that Angelopoulos admires and has been inspired by Tarkovsky's work -- but this is a director with his own vision, not one he has derived from the creativity of another artist.
The cinematography is breathtakingly stunning throughout -- and the long shots with which some viewers evidently find fault are in my opinion perfectly in tune with the flow and rhythm of the film. Too many people get used to the choppy, hurry-up-and-get-to-the-point techniques of Hollywood -- when something deeper, with more of an artistic foundation comes along, they have trouble relating to it. There are subtleties at work here -- masterful brushstrokes on film -- that must be taken in with an open, attentive mind. The small and the large combine into the cohesive whole that is this film -- sit back and let them do their work, don't try to guess where the film is going next or wonder how it's going to arrive there.
Keitel offers up a marvelously natural performance -- a review I read nailed it in part when it mentioned that Keitel doesn't so much 'deliver' his lines as become a vehicle for them. I got the feeling throughout the film that he was drawing his performance from a place very deep within himself, giving himself to it completely, allowing Angelopoulos' vision to animate his work. As a result, he is completely believable in his role as the exiled Greek filmmaker simply identified in the credits as 'A'.
Eleni Karaindrou's soundtrack (and the work of the great violist Kim Kashkashian in particular) complements the film perfectly. She has worked with Angelopoulos in the past, and continues to do so -- her music stands well on its own merit.
Not having seen this on the theatrical screen, I can't speak to the quality of the transfer -- and I must admit to having been disappointed by Fox-Lorber DVDs in the past -- but I thought the colour-drained look of many scenes in the film was perfect. Angelopoulos has stated that he 'feels' a film with all of his senses -- that translates into the exprience of viewing it as well...at least for me.
Highly recommended.


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