Before the Rain

We humans, all around the world, we have so much in common. We love to divide ourselves into tribes and find reasons to kill one another.

BEFORE THE RAIN is a film about people killing one another in Macedonia. The Christians hate the Muslims for atrocities committed under Muslim rule. The Muslims hate the Christians for atrocities committed under Christian rule. UN observers observe, and they bury the dead, and people in nice places like London natter on about standing up for peace. But as one Macedonian observes, “Look around the world. Peace is the exception, not the rule.” And you know what the saddest part is? This film could have been set in Sudan, or in the Kashmir, or in the Colombian mountains, or on the wrong side of the tracks in virtually any major city in the world.

BEFORE THE RAIN tells its story in three parts. The first, “Words,” centers on an Orthodox monk and the refugee whom he shelters. It’s about what we say and don’t say, and how the right or wrong word is life or death. The second, “Faces,” tells the story of a London photo editor and the men she loves, and why. It speaks to the gap between the civilized and uncivilized worlds, and how that gap is often smaller than we wish to acknowledge. The third, “Pictures,” is about intentions and the conflict between human aspiration and human nature. The chapters work as individual stories, but together they create a heartbreaking film about not just ethnic strife in Macedonia, but about elements of the human condition that have been rending hearts ever since the first primate picked up a stick and used it to club some other primate from the next tribe over.

What a sad, beautiful, compelling movie.