Before The Rain - Pretence & Mimesis
Thoughts On: Before The Rain (Пред дождот, 1994)
Made by Milcho Manchevski, this is the Macedonian film of the series.
Whilst Before The Rain is held in regard, an acclaimed film projecting a cycle of war and violence during a time of destruction and dispute in the Balkans, it stands to me as, above all else, a directorial debut. Before The Rain has high aspirations, but, in its efforts to do much work in the thematic realm, it finds itself appearing pretentious due to shortcomings in the realms of fundamental cinematic process - performance in particular. This is a familiar phenomenon. I have encountered it most intimately in my own work. To see lofty aspirations fail to take hold on screen due to a lack of technical ability is rather defeating. It is an indication that, in the cinema, the meaning-making process does not end with the establishment of an idea. So incredibly important in film is transposing one element of quality to various other realms, seeing a good idea become a good story outline, a solid script, a good story board, a striking series of scenes, a strong film. The process is fascinating. Alas, it is just as much so an illusive one.
Cinematic magic is real. One feels it in the films of Spielberg and Tarkovsky alike. It is the undeniably miraculous projection of meaning through the various levels of cinematic construction. To see and not understand the beautiful resonance of concept, script, performance, cinematography, design, choreography, editing, music and more is a mystical experience. This experience is so sublime because of the management of two process: known and unknown mimesis.
Art intrinsically aspires toward lyrosophical projection, which is to say, it means to transform truth into knowledge of a bodily and emotionally affecting class. Truth - reason underlying those innumerable mysteries of nature - most fundamentally emerges from the unknown. It is the imitation of the assumed yet unknown that supplies art its fundamental power and purpose. Truth, alas, manifests in reality, and so has a knowable face. Film not only attempts projects those known unknowns, but does so through filters of known reality. One sees this most directly in the relationship between performance and theme. A performer is often bound to the dictates of realism in their rendering and management of meaning. That is to say, for a performance to be affecting and meaningful, it often requires verisimilitude and an audience's belief. There are many key preformative modes, the melodramatic mode in particular, that are not bound to realism. Alas, often, performers (especially those in the cinema) rely heavily on known mimesis to manifest affective art. It is then by accuracy and genuity that an actor or actress is judged. In dance, movement and performance often operates in an impressionistic manner, evoking unknown processes of truth. On the screen, melancholia is often not an abstract expression as it must be in dance; it must closely represent reality. Theme manages the unknown more often then not on the screen. It is then abstract conceptual motifs that align a film with unknowable attributes of life and being. Performance, especially in typhlodramatic contexts, grounds those lyrosophic packages. An example can be found in Before The Rain.
The unknown mimetic qualities of this film concern time, compassion and violence, its lyrosophic intent can be bound to the motif 'the circle is not round.' The resurfacing of this statement at many points of the narrative implies that its circular structure is not merely a closed loop of drama stretching through multiple lives in different countries. The fact that the circle is not round may imply ill-structure and undulation; the cycle between compassion and death portrayed by the film, not smooth, but treacherous and unpredictable, the cycle a winding path back to where one began. With this abstraction sitting above the narrative, its loose implications and suggestiveness a key reason as to why the film garnered such regard, performers are tasked with realising it through their scripted drama. The results are not satisfactory. It is not so simple as the performances are not good; they are fine. The performances as known mimetic processes are rather in conflict with the thematic projection, an unknown mimetic process. This is to say that the performances do not convincingly portray the melancholy and compassion that the thematic discourse requires to function optimally. Put most simple, how can one be expected to engage the narrative's intellectual side if its emotional elements are disengaging--if characters appear contrived and their performances trite?
What makes the performative known mimesis fail its its inability to be truthful. Truthfulness, despite the implications thus far made, is not necessarily bound to reality or realism - not in art and cinema. Truth is a sentiment bound to the unknown and so manifests cannot be assumed as the only means of accessing knowledge. Alas, in the case of Before The Rain, a semi-realist, typhlodramatic film that, it appears, attempts to ground its unrealism in reality, an inability to capture the truth of how things really are or appear to be is highly detrimental. This film then teaches us much about the relationship between known and unknown mimetic processes as something of a pretentious work of a debuting artist.
Previous post:
On The Impression Of Reality In The Cinema
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
Whilst Before The Rain is held in regard, an acclaimed film projecting a cycle of war and violence during a time of destruction and dispute in the Balkans, it stands to me as, above all else, a directorial debut. Before The Rain has high aspirations, but, in its efforts to do much work in the thematic realm, it finds itself appearing pretentious due to shortcomings in the realms of fundamental cinematic process - performance in particular. This is a familiar phenomenon. I have encountered it most intimately in my own work. To see lofty aspirations fail to take hold on screen due to a lack of technical ability is rather defeating. It is an indication that, in the cinema, the meaning-making process does not end with the establishment of an idea. So incredibly important in film is transposing one element of quality to various other realms, seeing a good idea become a good story outline, a solid script, a good story board, a striking series of scenes, a strong film. The process is fascinating. Alas, it is just as much so an illusive one.
Cinematic magic is real. One feels it in the films of Spielberg and Tarkovsky alike. It is the undeniably miraculous projection of meaning through the various levels of cinematic construction. To see and not understand the beautiful resonance of concept, script, performance, cinematography, design, choreography, editing, music and more is a mystical experience. This experience is so sublime because of the management of two process: known and unknown mimesis.
Art intrinsically aspires toward lyrosophical projection, which is to say, it means to transform truth into knowledge of a bodily and emotionally affecting class. Truth - reason underlying those innumerable mysteries of nature - most fundamentally emerges from the unknown. It is the imitation of the assumed yet unknown that supplies art its fundamental power and purpose. Truth, alas, manifests in reality, and so has a knowable face. Film not only attempts projects those known unknowns, but does so through filters of known reality. One sees this most directly in the relationship between performance and theme. A performer is often bound to the dictates of realism in their rendering and management of meaning. That is to say, for a performance to be affecting and meaningful, it often requires verisimilitude and an audience's belief. There are many key preformative modes, the melodramatic mode in particular, that are not bound to realism. Alas, often, performers (especially those in the cinema) rely heavily on known mimesis to manifest affective art. It is then by accuracy and genuity that an actor or actress is judged. In dance, movement and performance often operates in an impressionistic manner, evoking unknown processes of truth. On the screen, melancholia is often not an abstract expression as it must be in dance; it must closely represent reality. Theme manages the unknown more often then not on the screen. It is then abstract conceptual motifs that align a film with unknowable attributes of life and being. Performance, especially in typhlodramatic contexts, grounds those lyrosophic packages. An example can be found in Before The Rain.
The unknown mimetic qualities of this film concern time, compassion and violence, its lyrosophic intent can be bound to the motif 'the circle is not round.' The resurfacing of this statement at many points of the narrative implies that its circular structure is not merely a closed loop of drama stretching through multiple lives in different countries. The fact that the circle is not round may imply ill-structure and undulation; the cycle between compassion and death portrayed by the film, not smooth, but treacherous and unpredictable, the cycle a winding path back to where one began. With this abstraction sitting above the narrative, its loose implications and suggestiveness a key reason as to why the film garnered such regard, performers are tasked with realising it through their scripted drama. The results are not satisfactory. It is not so simple as the performances are not good; they are fine. The performances as known mimetic processes are rather in conflict with the thematic projection, an unknown mimetic process. This is to say that the performances do not convincingly portray the melancholy and compassion that the thematic discourse requires to function optimally. Put most simple, how can one be expected to engage the narrative's intellectual side if its emotional elements are disengaging--if characters appear contrived and their performances trite?
What makes the performative known mimesis fail its its inability to be truthful. Truthfulness, despite the implications thus far made, is not necessarily bound to reality or realism - not in art and cinema. Truth is a sentiment bound to the unknown and so manifests cannot be assumed as the only means of accessing knowledge. Alas, in the case of Before The Rain, a semi-realist, typhlodramatic film that, it appears, attempts to ground its unrealism in reality, an inability to capture the truth of how things really are or appear to be is highly detrimental. This film then teaches us much about the relationship between known and unknown mimetic processes as something of a pretentious work of a debuting artist.
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Previous post:
On The Impression Of Reality In The Cinema
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
