Product Details

• Actors: Grégoire Colin, Phyllida Law, Peter Needham, Rade Serbedzija, Joe Gould
• Directors: Milcho Manchevski
• Format: Color, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Criterion
• DVD Release Date: June 24, 2008
• Run Time: 103 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (76 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0016AKSO6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #39,062 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Before the Rain (The Criterion Collection)" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

A strange, confusing, and confident picture from the Macedonian director Milcho Manchevski. He has the sensibility of someone who has seen quite enough to rid him of political illusion; watching the film, you'd never guess that he's only thirty-five. The first and third parts are set in Macedonia, where a young monk (Gregoire Colin) harbors a refugee (Labina Mitevska) from the local Albanian minority. His uncle, the chunky and fearless Aleksandar (Rade Serbedzija), has come home to get some peace. Not a chance: this is a place where villages are torn in two. The middle section, a scrap of a love affair set in London, is less successful, although even here the editing is so beautifully paced that Manchevski makes you sense fault lines running all over the world. He sees through hope and bigotry alike, and even when his complex rotary narrative makes no logical sense it never stops making emotional sense. In Macedonian. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Product Description

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!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

43 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Greatest Films of Our Time, June 13, 2000

By 

David Kleist - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Before the Rain [VHS] (VHS Tape)

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!

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captures the Haunting Spirit of Place and Time, October 2, 2000

By 

EriKa "E" (Iceland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Before The Rain (Pred Dozhdot): Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (Audio CD)

Dark, dramatic, mysterious, intriguing laments in musical form that perfectly fit with the film of the same name. The music is at once gripping, captivating, alluring, and even dangerous. It intoxicates and transports you to the place and time of the music. Indeed, it is an experience to listen to it. This is the mark of a great soundtrack, I think. One which can be taken outside the context of the film for which it was made and played again and again, still evoking the images of the film (or evoking other, perhaps more powerful feelings).

I loved this film (also highly recommend it), but the soundtrack is exquisite and stands alone as a musical achievement.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great film about a great tragedy, September 18, 2004

By 

Luiza Vartavarian (Chicago) - See all my reviews
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In watching this movie you can understand the Balkan conflict better than if you readfive books on the subject. It is about the power of war crushing the innocence of love. good acting all around and wonderful cinematography. We need a DVD relase of this one! those reading this review please tell amazon you want a DVD version, as more and more people switch exclusively to DVD it would be a shame of if this gem were forgotten.