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没逻辑，没语法，懒得翻
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Milcho Manchevski and His Forever Theme
Milcho Manchevski is a Macedonian director and screenwriter, born 1959 in, Skopjie. He moved to New York after high school and started his career since graduating from the film program at Southern Illinois University in 1981. Although he had spent most of his years in America, his 4 feature films are all about his hometown Macedonia, an Eastern Europe country that had long history in both great culture and long term war problems.
In Manchevski’s film, the most fascinating thing to me is that he had kept telling different stories about his country and showed the same theme through these stories. From my point of view, I can only see two things in his film: 1, life and death; 2, the obsession about reality. These two themes ran through all his films, and I would like to summarize them as a kind of obsession of humanity in Macedonia from a Macedonian as an outsider of his own country.
Reality and fantasy in storytelling
Storytelling from characters are all existed in his four feature films. The photographer told the story about he made somebody killed people in Before the Rains; the story about how pasted people live in the other world in Shadows; In dust, the whole film is formed by two stories; In Mothers, there are stories about flasher, the story about the old brother and sister and the story about a murderer’s death. From the writer’s aspect, Manchevski made up or adapted all these stories, the most famous one is Before the Rains.
In Before the Rains, three stories arranged in a confusing timeline, which indicates to the famous script in the film, “Time never dies, the circle is never round.” Many people tried to figure out which story comes first, which comes after, and they all failed. Although these three story were told in realistic style separately, when you link them together, the whole story can be told from any point to start, and any point to end. I think the purpose of Manchevski is to trap a story into a piece of loop and twisted time, the heavy rain would never come and the intense of the period before the rain would always approaching to the maximum point but never actually reach. So the whole story is totally a fantasy but showed a real feeling of Macedonia.
Dust is very alike with Before the Rain. It was made in 2001. It shows a clear point of view of Manchevski’s storytelling way. He knew Before the Rain was his best playing with storytelling, and he had no interests in that anymore. I am surprised to find that I can understand the whole story without subtitle even though I cannot understand Macedonian. The beauty of these two stories is that the deliberately confusion of reality and fantasy. In Before the Rains, the whole story is a fantasy, real world can’t be like that but human’s feeling can accept that and feels like reality. At the beginning of Dust, the first layer of the story happened in New York, we can clearly tell that it is logically make sense. In the second layer, the old lady cannot remember the story well so she made mistakes, also because the story was took place before her birth, so she cannot know it completely. So this layer is the overlay of reality and fantasy, though they still have a clear boundary between each other, such as the young man argued people’s number with the old lady, so that we could know this part could be fantasy. The third layer is the most confusing part. Luke dropped on the ground in the air, the girl brought Luke into the future and saw Elijah’s death, 200 soldiers disappeared in the dust, and the black young man came from the past, the cowboy watched the plane fly through sky. In the end he told the girl on the plane that he was there, and showed her the black and white photo with him inside. Manchevski doesn’t care about what is real what is illusion in this layer, and deliberately mix the timeline of the two stories together.
In Shadows, we know it was a ghost story after we watched it. So basically the story was again a fantasy. But all the ghosts were presented in a real way. The girl pretend to be someone’s wife, the old lady dressed like another cleaner in the building and when the neighbor dropped into the elevator, many people were there and trying to help, made them look like real people. It only showed some hints that indicate they are unreal. No one would link the bones with those vivid people, especially the girl Lazar fell in love with. All the real people seem to be interact with the ghosts. Like the first time when someone broke into the professor’s office, Lazar and the girl said he was not there together, actually the person can just saw and heard Lazar, but Lazar himself cannot feel any difference. The dropping into elevator scene also did not mention what happened after they opened the door, people supposed to see there’s no one inside, but it had been ignored in the story. The other thing that presented in a real way is that all the ghosts did not mention how to make them rest in peace, if they are real ghosts they would know it was the bones, but none of them mentioned directly. So in the story it was Lazar found out what had his mother stolen and where to bury the bones.
In Mothers, it was the way Manchevski put the three stories together blurring the line of real and fantasy. First, we cannot know the timeline of the boy (fake flasher), we saw he had been caught in the police office first, then in the second story we saw him drive to the countryside with his friends. We can either assume that he had been the fake flasher before the trip or after. But in the second story, we knew that the girl left her first boyfriend and be with him between her two of her visits to the old lady. At her last visit (her latter boyfriend didn’t come with her), she said she was pregnant and her mother was dead so no one took care of her, again we can either assume that the boy was in jail so no one took care of her, or she broke up with the boy so he was out of the story. Every suspect situation perfectly makes sense, but all we know is the part that Manchevski wanted to show. The two stories seem to be unreal because too many things needs to be explained had been skipped. The fake documentary is even funny. Manchevski told us that the event is real, the people had been interviewed are playing their own characters, and the form of the third part is documentary. The only difference from what a real documentary supposed to be is the event had pasted for long time, and in the film Manchevski asked those witnesses to act. The documentary gave me a feeling that truth cannot be known and recorded. Those witnesses are just the closest people to the truth, but no one can truly reach it. The witness cannot remember every detail about it, and they were out of different purposes to decide to be in the film, they would speak for the story that they wanted to show. So because the way Manchevski told the story in his film, reality can never be reached and fantasy can make people feel real spirits.
Macedonian’s life and death
Life and death also runs through all Manchevski’s films. Although he had all those fantastic and even legendary stories that attracted most of his audience attention, I think what he truly wanted to tell is the background of his all films—Macedonia.
I love Dust and Before the Rains best. They both show perspective from outsiders. The clearest sight to see a race can never be inside the country. For Macedonians, they cannot keep their minds thinking when they had a history of blood and fire for so many years.
It can’t be a coincident that Manchevski is a person who lived outside his country for more than half of his life. To Manchevski, I think he enjoyed to show his point of view within the stories. Although I cannot know much about this country, but it’s not hard to imagine in a place like that, there’s nothing as simple as right and wrong. I heard many people said they think Before the Rains is a story that tells people violence is wrong so it bring suffers to people. While I was enjoying guessing what Manchevski really want to tell, I’d say I don’t think so. Manchevski is like a poet, a poet should not judge, a poet should hope. To me, he is always simply phrasing the death and birth, and hoping new birth can bring slightly better thing to this country. In before the Rains, three stories ended with death, but the structure of the stories shows that death can never be an end to Macedonians. I think to him death means eternity. Before the Rains is telling the story of people step in the big eternity loop by killing, dying, burying then killing again. I think this is the way how Macedonians live, when they are alive, to live soundly, to love enthusiastically; when they are dead, to moan painfully; when they are born, to celebrate loudly, even though they know there are going to be fighting, killing, death in this land, but every one is hoping.
Not like Before the Rains, the death and life circle is perfectly round in Dust. The child told the story how she was born from death and buried in the land where she was born. In Dust, Manchevski treated death in a different way from Before the Rain. They buried the death killed by them sadly in Before the Rains, but in Dust, woman gave birth on the land full of dead body. It seems to be more hopeful in Dust, so many deaths sacrifice to one baby. The baby didn’t kill the robber when she was going to face her death, and her death made the robber’s heart became a little softer. Hope accompany with new birth, grow on the land of dust and death’s blood. Also, the time transition between the two stories indicates now Macedonians are better than past, and it will be better, which is indicated by the black man return to Macedonia (as a symbol of the old lady’s son).
If Before the Rain is a story about death and Dust is a story about birth, then I would say that Mothers is a story about being regretful and grateful to life itself, or I should say it’s just about life. Menchevski is a very ambitious director, and yet he successfully told one after another more and more great and complicated stories. Death, as one of this film poet favorite element, appears in Mothers as well. I cannot understand why he would like to present the most intense story in documentary way and put it at the last. My understanding is a kind of regret to the crime, and a kind of understanding from the director to his country as well. Before the third story, the first one explains how Macedonians become cold towards all the crimes. It’s because children hadn’t been told to do the right things, their last generation and the generation before last one became numb after all the sufferings, so they pass this attitude towards their children. The second story is about salvation. It shows the good part of Macedonian, the part that war and suffering could not changed. The girl returned the old lady’s wedding jewelry, showed her the film they made, asked the old lady to live with her, all the thing she was done, is out of her pure humanity, indicates the salvation of the old days. Then the third story about the regret is making sense here.
I also love the title, Mothers. Being a mother means life (and to live) and death at the same time, she would probably die when she gives birth, and she would have chance to raise her child, form the child’s personality, the child might either be a better person than her or be a worse person. To me, the title indicates Manchevski’s forever subject, his country Macedonia. The meaning of mother just like all his stories about this country, some are good, some are bad, but first he has to have so deep emotion and blood bond with mother country. That is why he dares to show us so painful memories of Macedonia; so conflicting death and vivid love and life; so strong and violent lifestyle and history, with all his love.
没逻辑，没语法，懒得翻
----------------
Milcho Manchevski and His Forever Theme
Milcho Manchevski is a Macedonian director and screenwriter, born 1959 in, Skopjie. He moved to New York after high school and started his career since graduating from the film program at Southern Illinois University in 1981. Although he had spent most of his years in America, his 4 feature films are all about his hometown Macedonia, an Eastern Europe country that had long history in both great culture and long term war problems.
In Manchevski’s film, the most fascinating thing to me is that he had kept telling different stories about his country and showed the same theme through these stories. From my point of view, I can only see two things in his film: 1, life and death; 2, the obsession about reality. These two themes ran through all his films, and I would like to summarize them as a kind of obsession of humanity in Macedonia from a Macedonian as an outsider of his own country.
Reality and fantasy in storytelling
Storytelling from characters are all existed in his four feature films. The photographer told the story about he made somebody killed people in Before the Rains; the story about how pasted people live in the other world in Shadows; In dust, the whole film is formed by two stories; In Mothers, there are stories about flasher, the story about the old brother and sister and the story about a murderer’s death. From the writer’s aspect, Manchevski made up or adapted all these stories, the most famous one is Before the Rains.
In Before the Rains, three stories arranged in a confusing timeline, which indicates to the famous script in the film, “Time never dies, the circle is never round.” Many people tried to figure out which story comes first, which comes after, and they all failed. Although these three story were told in realistic style separately, when you link them together, the whole story can be told from any point to start, and any point to end. I think the purpose of Manchevski is to trap a story into a piece of loop and twisted time, the heavy rain would never come and the intense of the period before the rain would always approaching to the maximum point but never actually reach. So the whole story is totally a fantasy but showed a real feeling of Macedonia.
Dust is very alike with Before the Rain. It was made in 2001. It shows a clear point of view of Manchevski’s storytelling way. He knew Before the Rain was his best playing with storytelling, and he had no interests in that anymore. I am surprised to find that I can understand the whole story without subtitle even though I cannot understand Macedonian. The beauty of these two stories is that the deliberately confusion of reality and fantasy. In Before the Rains, the whole story is a fantasy, real world can’t be like that but human’s feeling can accept that and feels like reality. At the beginning of Dust, the first layer of the story happened in New York, we can clearly tell that it is logically make sense. In the second layer, the old lady cannot remember the story well so she made mistakes, also because the story was took place before her birth, so she cannot know it completely. So this layer is the overlay of reality and fantasy, though they still have a clear boundary between each other, such as the young man argued people’s number with the old lady, so that we could know this part could be fantasy. The third layer is the most confusing part. Luke dropped on the ground in the air, the girl brought Luke into the future and saw Elijah’s death, 200 soldiers disappeared in the dust, and the black young man came from the past, the cowboy watched the plane fly through sky. In the end he told the girl on the plane that he was there, and showed her the black and white photo with him inside. Manchevski doesn’t care about what is real what is illusion in this layer, and deliberately mix the timeline of the two stories together.
In Shadows, we know it was a ghost story after we watched it. So basically the story was again a fantasy. But all the ghosts were presented in a real way. The girl pretend to be someone’s wife, the old lady dressed like another cleaner in the building and when the neighbor dropped into the elevator, many people were there and trying to help, made them look like real people. It only showed some hints that indicate they are unreal. No one would link the bones with those vivid people, especially the girl Lazar fell in love with. All the real people seem to be interact with the ghosts. Like the first time when someone broke into the professor’s office, Lazar and the girl said he was not there together, actually the person can just saw and heard Lazar, but Lazar himself cannot feel any difference. The dropping into elevator scene also did not mention what happened after they opened the door, people supposed to see there’s no one inside, but it had been ignored in the story. The other thing that presented in a real way is that all the ghosts did not mention how to make them rest in peace, if they are real ghosts they would know it was the bones, but none of them mentioned directly. So in the story it was Lazar found out what had his mother stolen and where to bury the bones.
In Mothers, it was the way Manchevski put the three stories together blurring the line of real and fantasy. First, we cannot know the timeline of the boy (fake flasher), we saw he had been caught in the police office first, then in the second story we saw him drive to the countryside with his friends. We can either assume that he had been the fake flasher before the trip or after. But in the second story, we knew that the girl left her first boyfriend and be with him between her two of her visits to the old lady. At her last visit (her latter boyfriend didn’t come with her), she said she was pregnant and her mother was dead so no one took care of her, again we can either assume that the boy was in jail so no one took care of her, or she broke up with the boy so he was out of the story. Every suspect situation perfectly makes sense, but all we know is the part that Manchevski wanted to show. The two stories seem to be unreal because too many things needs to be explained had been skipped. The fake documentary is even funny. Manchevski told us that the event is real, the people had been interviewed are playing their own characters, and the form of the third part is documentary. The only difference from what a real documentary supposed to be is the event had pasted for long time, and in the film Manchevski asked those witnesses to act. The documentary gave me a feeling that truth cannot be known and recorded. Those witnesses are just the closest people to the truth, but no one can truly reach it. The witness cannot remember every detail about it, and they were out of different purposes to decide to be in the film, they would speak for the story that they wanted to show. So because the way Manchevski told the story in his film, reality can never be reached and fantasy can make people feel real spirits.
Macedonian’s life and death
Life and death also runs through all Manchevski’s films. Although he had all those fantastic and even legendary stories that attracted most of his audience attention, I think what he truly wanted to tell is the background of his all films—Macedonia.
I love Dust and Before the Rains best. They both show perspective from outsiders. The clearest sight to see a race can never be inside the country. For Macedonians, they cannot keep their minds thinking when they had a history of blood and fire for so many years.
It can’t be a coincident that Manchevski is a person who lived outside his country for more than half of his life. To Manchevski, I think he enjoyed to show his point of view within the stories. Although I cannot know much about this country, but it’s not hard to imagine in a place like that, there’s nothing as simple as right and wrong. I heard many people said they think Before the Rains is a story that tells people violence is wrong so it bring suffers to people. While I was enjoying guessing what Manchevski really want to tell, I’d say I don’t think so. Manchevski is like a poet, a poet should not judge, a poet should hope. To me, he is always simply phrasing the death and birth, and hoping new birth can bring slightly better thing to this country. In before the Rains, three stories ended with death, but the structure of the stories shows that death can never be an end to Macedonians. I think to him death means eternity. Before the Rains is telling the story of people step in the big eternity loop by killing, dying, burying then killing again. I think this is the way how Macedonians live, when they are alive, to live soundly, to love enthusiastically; when they are dead, to moan painfully; when they are born, to celebrate loudly, even though they know there are going to be fighting, killing, death in this land, but every one is hoping.
Not like Before the Rains, the death and life circle is perfectly round in Dust. The child told the story how she was born from death and buried in the land where she was born. In Dust, Manchevski treated death in a different way from Before the Rain. They buried the death killed by them sadly in Before the Rains, but in Dust, woman gave birth on the land full of dead body. It seems to be more hopeful in Dust, so many deaths sacrifice to one baby. The baby didn’t kill the robber when she was going to face her death, and her death made the robber’s heart became a little softer. Hope accompany with new birth, grow on the land of dust and death’s blood. Also, the time transition between the two stories indicates now Macedonians are better than past, and it will be better, which is indicated by the black man return to Macedonia (as a symbol of the old lady’s son).
If Before the Rain is a story about death and Dust is a story about birth, then I would say that Mothers is a story about being regretful and grateful to life itself, or I should say it’s just about life. Menchevski is a very ambitious director, and yet he successfully told one after another more and more great and complicated stories. Death, as one of this film poet favorite element, appears in Mothers as well. I cannot understand why he would like to present the most intense story in documentary way and put it at the last. My understanding is a kind of regret to the crime, and a kind of understanding from the director to his country as well. Before the third story, the first one explains how Macedonians become cold towards all the crimes. It’s because children hadn’t been told to do the right things, their last generation and the generation before last one became numb after all the sufferings, so they pass this attitude towards their children. The second story is about salvation. It shows the good part of Macedonian, the part that war and suffering could not changed. The girl returned the old lady’s wedding jewelry, showed her the film they made, asked the old lady to live with her, all the thing she was done, is out of her pure humanity, indicates the salvation of the old days. Then the third story about the regret is making sense here.
I also love the title, Mothers. Being a mother means life (and to live) and death at the same time, she would probably die when she gives birth, and she would have chance to raise her child, form the child’s personality, the child might either be a better person than her or be a worse person. To me, the title indicates Manchevski’s forever subject, his country Macedonia. The meaning of mother just like all his stories about this country, some are good, some are bad, but first he has to have so deep emotion and blood bond with mother country. That is why he dares to show us so painful memories of Macedonia; so conflicting death and vivid love and life; so strong and violent lifestyle and history, with all his love.
