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... ely through his actions. We see this when the Father asks of him if he has seen the girl, and he simply says nothing because he cannot. Zdrave hides in his room in the monastery while she is being hunted by a gang of Macedonians. This ongoing war moves the story to the sacrifice she has previously made, that at the time we are unaware of. The two are vanquished from the monastery and as they flee she is killed by her grandfather and brother.
In London, the female character is faced with similar present decisions that she makes based on future goals, and hence moves ahead with her life. The film shows this line of thinking as forward progress. She decides that she must divorce her husband for one reason or another based on something that happened between them. As they are out to dinner, the camera shows a scuffle in the background between a man at the bar and a waiter. It would appear to highlight again the war as one man is Macedonian and the other Albanian. The man shoots up the restaurant and happens to hit Nick, the husband.
He is killed and she is now forced to move forward on her own. Her past is revisited in a taxi cab with a former lover named Alex. He is moving back to Macedonia and wants her to accompany him. She declines because of the current obligations in her life and he goes on ahead forgetting about her completely, telling a man later that she died in a taxi.
It is here that the story line goes back in time, and it is as though the decision to return home, and forget this woman while she is still alive, will not progress his life and hence moves him relatively back in time. The relationships and decisions the characters make in this film are very personal in every case. Kiril, giving up everything of importance in his life to protect this girl for greater good, the photographer woman, deciding to stay in London and get divorced, and Alex, moving back home alone to see family and friends and then also protect Zdrave so she can escape alive, are all personal life choices that each reflect the ongoing war. What the film points out, however, is that these decisions not only affect the movement of time, but that they reflect society and what is accepted there and what is virtuous.
It shows how these individual choices affect other people in other societies, and how everything is connected. Alex loses his life to save Zdrave. This event shows Kiril the monk love and opens his life. When Zdrave is shot, the scene is caught on film and sent to London. This affects one womans career, which in turn affects her life and the choices she must make. Alex goes home because of the war, and we see first hand the struggle between the Albanians and the Macedonians He is greeted by guns and segregation that had previously did not exist while he was there.
The fighting is caused by individual actions, and the war in turn affects what happens to the individual characters. This is very similar to what the war represents in Hiroshima Mon Amour. In both cases, past and present events occur on different levels and life circles around these events. The wars in both movies symbolize how the characters are connected and bought together. In Hiroshima Mon Amour, the bombing, in an indirect way, allows the two to find a love that would otherwise not exist. War is what killed Elles first love and moved her to Paris where in turn the bombings of Hiroshima brought her to Japan.
How the two actually met is not revealed to us in the film, but is not important to what the film is getting at. Life moves in events while time goes on. The film shows us how Elle lives with her current situation in Hiroshima and how her memories of the war and her past are revisited at different times. Through the film and her experiences we see how the intricate details of her life affect what she does in the present and how she copes with it.
These decisions she makes set forth her future, while at the same time, the different events of her future change the way she looks at the events in her past. She develops new ways of thinking and understanding the war and looking at her own past relationships. It is in this way that her life goes on and suggests that life is a series of emotions from events and memories and that they are all connected, just as actions and events that occur connect all of us. In Before the Rain we also see how global and individual events are connected in life and how they affect different people. The war between the Albanians and Macedonians is affected by different individuals and in turn affects the individuals lives. All the characters are drawn together through the war although they have no way of knowing it.
The way time moves in this movie is less scattered visually than in Hiroshima Mon Amour, but it is still a relative occurrence. Past and present are relative to the individual lives while time moves forward all the while. We see how the present is based on the future and pushes people forward, and present based on the past brings people backwards. Lifes events in whole are circular while not perfectly, but throughout, time moves on and so does life. The two movies present life in a sequence, whether it is through action or memory. In conclusion, both films move forward in time, and they both present a similar, circular structure for how life works.
Hiroshima Mon Amour does this more narrative and psychologically where as Before the Rain explores it visually and chronologically. Both films start with imagery and plot to set the framework up. In both, the images and stories set up what we see in terms of each characters life. This comes down to the emotions we are shown through the acting and the beliefs and desires that come to light in each individuals motivation. Through this we are shown the passing of time in their lives. We see past and present events and how the characters react and move on.
Time, life and events all spiral around each other in the films, sometimes similarly and connected, other times at random, all along the way time progressing forward. Both films present this as life and verify that, Time never dies; the circle is not round. This being the metaphor for how life works; the sequence of images represent life, life shows the passing of time, and events moving along in time make up life. This completes the imperfect circle. Through it all we see that the only absolute is where we are at a particular point in time and where we stand in society. Life merely fits in between.
It is lived and ended. As humans, people live in society and hence control it, while what happens in society somewhat controls us and governs our own lives. The films both suggest that we have choices in the present, and control our own actions but at the same time, as time moves on, we each have our own place in our personal relationships, society and the world. Both films represent the idea that life works in cycles and that it moves forward with action until it is over, and in the end we have to take that place that we were given and created.
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Research essay sample on Past And Present Back In Time
