Plot

Three interconnected stories of love under the threat of civil war in Macedonia and London.

Before the Rain tells the stories of an orthodox Christian monk, a British photo agent, and a native Macedonian war photographer to paint a portrait of simmering ethnic and religious hatred about to reach its boiling point. 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 powerful laments on the futility of war.

PART 1: WORDS. A young Macedonian priest under a vow of silence (Grégoire Colin) tries to hide the teenage Muslim girl Zamira (Labina Mitevska) from Christian gunmen seeking to avenge the death of a shepherd. PART 2: FACES. London photo editor Anne (Katrin Cartlidge of Naked (1993)) is encouraged by her mother to reconcile with her husband Nick (Naked (1993)), but gets caught with her boyfriend Aleksander, a native Macedonian and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer (Rade Serbedzija: Manifesto (1988), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Memento (2000)). At a restaurant, Nick is overjoyed to hear that Anne is pregnant, but she tells him that she wants a divorce. A problem with a waiter, apparently a Macedonian immigrant, intrudes on their personal pain. PART 3: PICTURES. Aleksander returns to Macedonia after 14 years and finds his village split by feuds between Macedonian Christians and Albanian Muslims. He can't see his old girlfriend Hana (Silvija Stojanovska), a Muslim, because members of her family are obsessed with killing Christians. When a shepherd is murdered with a pitchfork, Hana asks Aleksander to protect her daughter, Zamira. Aleksander must oppose his own kin to try and shield the terrorized captive girl.

The circularity of violence seen in a story that circles on itself. In Republic of Macedonia, during war in Bosnia, Christians hunt an ethnic Albanian girl who may have murdered one of their own. A young monk who's taken a vow of silence offers her protection. In London, a photographic editor who's pregnant needs to talk it out with her estranged husband and chooses a toney restaurant. She wants permanence with her lover, a prize-winning Macedonian photographer just back from Bosnia, changed by the violence. He leaves abruptly for his village; he's not visited it in 16 years. There he tries to ignore bitter divisions between his Orthodox brethren and local Albanians, then tries to transcend them.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

Set against a background of political turbulence in Macedonia and contemporary London, three love stories intertwine to create a powerful portrait of modern Europe in Milcho Manchevski "Before the Rain". When a mysterious incident in the fabled Macedonian mountains blows out of proportion, it threatens to start a civil war, and brings together a silent young monk, a London picture editor, and a disillusioned war photographer in a tragic tale of fated lovers. Told in three parts, and linked by characters and events, "Before the Rain" explores the uncompromising nature of war as it ravages the lives of unsuspecting, and forces the innocent to take sides.—Monica Stojanovska (stojanovskid@mt.net.mk)