Pretty Good

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

The movie has it all, amassing storyline with lots of great metaphors (even the title is a metaphor for forthcoming turmoil), great acting, beautiful music and colorful picture. The main storyline happens in Macedonia, but the movie is timeless and it is true for every conflict in the world, as in the movie the director in a beautiful way plays with time and places. Take any conflict in the world and you will see the same, how the violence can bring more hatred, turmoil and nothing good, and how hard can be to break this circle. But as it says in the movie the circle is not always round, it is not everything as it seems, and this circle of violence can be hardly broken. Truly a Masterpiece, and it won't be exaggerated if I say this is a movie version of Picasso's Guernica. The shapes are not easy to see, but when you see it you will understand it is stunning and it carries beautiful message.

Obviously most people are enthralled with this movie. I wasn't. The music was good but the cinematography was lacking - too many shots shown over again. I watch a lot of foreign movies and, I guess, unfortunately had just watched "A Very Long Engagement" with cinematography that excelled. I suppose the message in Before The Rain was that time may not have been circular but it certainly comes back onto itself. The feeling I had was that the writer wanted to paint this little universe, which always repeated itself. Was this plot anything to do with the reality we all live in? No! We live in a linear reality and we don't see pictures of things that haven't happened yet. I thought it was more than depressing that the cycle the writer chose was punctuated with fusillades of gunfire from start to end. I thought "Dark Country" made better use of an enclosed circular universe.I also found the likelihood that someone could return to his old home after 16 years false, especially with the tribality and backwardness of the inhabitants which he had outgrown shortly after leaving. I have been traveling for 7 years and things are different. I could not go back to what was and be a part of those I knew. So the idea that Rade, world-wise traveler thought he could just enter his old stomping grounds did not make sense. He would have had more sense, particularly when he was met by a gun-toting guard. When he first arrived he saw his house had been abandoned so how could he not understand his old life had also been abandoned?

But this film's construction is, like the cycle of war. Brilliant, as of course is the film. Gotta do ten lines.This is one of the best anti-war films ever made, on par with Bardov's Prisoner of the Mountains, which I recommend to you, along side Susan Beir's Brothers.Should be required viewing for all politicians...The art in this film is immense, from the film stock, to the lighting, acting, story, in essence, a perfect film. Have to wonder about people who don't appreciate it, much less enjoy it on some level. Brutally honest film about the consequences of war.

two different stages in europe with one common ground, violence are connected in this movie. but also love don't get missed out in milcho manchevskis "wonderfull" masterpiece. love will be found in sundry figures or implementations always in contrast to hatred, terror and war. one of those movies, whose pictures you will never forget in your live. pictures that melt opposites into one. one example: after years Aleksander comes back to macedonia and finds his parents house destroyed by war. an image full of demolition, chaos, love and boundless romantic, that seek after equal quality in different categories. A MUST!!!