MovieChat Forums > Pred dozhdot (1995) Discussion > The Circle is Not Round

The Circle is Not Round

posted 8 years ago by godewey (16472)
17 replies | jump to latest

I have seen this movie a few times.
It takes place in Macedonia during the Bosnian war.
During the ethnic cleansing in Yugoslavia.

This film isn't necessarily about the war. It is more
of a statement on what was happening during this time
and of war in general. People whose hatred for somebody
else is stronger than their love of their own kind.

The film is shown in 3 parts that intertwine and crossover.
The first scene of the movie is also the last. The stories don't
exactly make sense as far time goes but that was done on purpose.

This is one of those thought provoking and conversation movies.
It is a powerful movie with great acting and cinematography.

[–] MinaVladimir (4086) 7 years ago

I don't know what the shape of the circle is, but there was a lot about the cyclical nature of things in the film. Not only the structure itself, but the "circle of life" in general shown in the film. The man at his parents' grave, then the calves being born, Atzo's cousing dying, then we have the wedding.

The rain itself packs a lot of meaning by itself. It's a violent storm in the beginning. At the end it's almost as if it is cleansing the characters of their wrong doings, before the cycle begins again.

That's how I understood things anyway.

I didn't get the middle story, "Faces". I think it was the weakest part of the film. Were we supposed to take away from it that people are the carriers of war or something like that? I don't understand it.

Also, gotta love that the "500 years under the Ottomans" is a "one historical period fits all" excuse for hatred and violence all over the Balkans, over a hundred years after it ended. God knows I hear it every other day (exaggerated for effect, but it is often).

One other thing, the soundtrack was amazing!

[–] godewey (16472) 7 years ago

The movie is loaded with symbolism. All the ones you mentioned plus the amount of circles that were
shown in the movie. There are dozens of them. Starting with the beginning with the kids playing with
the turtle. The beginning of each story starts with a plane going overhead. Maybe to symbolize
arriving or leaving. Several characters shown throwing up. Maybe to show the sickness of war or people
being sick of it. The rains and thunder shown throughout the movie having to do with the title
but also showing the storm of violence that's about to come along with washing it away.

The way the story is set up about a third of the way into the movie we see the end of the story but
we don't know it yet.

I think Faces shows people are the carrier of war and hate but I also think it shows another reason for hate.
Just like words start violence people can hate just from the way somebody looks or how we perceive people.
I think it also shows that even if a war is far away from you it really isn't. It always finds you in some manner.

In the last segment Aleksander returns home after being gone for a long time.
As an outsider now he can't believe that his home has come to this. Childhood friends who now hate
each other. He chose a side earlier and somebody was killed. He chose a side after he got home
and somebody was killed. Him. He didn't follow his own advice.

The hatred of another is so great they would rather kill loved ones. We see this happen twice.

The cinematography and way it was created is the best part of this movie.
If I had to choose the weak spot for me it was the characters. They didn't give enough time for us to
learn a lot about them and really care for them. The impact of the girl being shot and Aleksander wasn't
has powerful as it could have been.
There also some questions regarding things that happened and timeline.
The director has said there are what he called time paradoxes in film that was done on purpose.
Not sure it explains all of them.

[–] MinaVladimir (4086) 7 years ago

When there are langer thematic things at play I can forgive the wonky timeline and the characters being a bit underdeveloped. I accept it, because there are bigger things being explored, so those things don't matter as much, to me anyway, in cases like this. That's maybe why I didn't get the second part. It felt somehow off. But all that you said about what it meant made sense.

I don't think the story _has_ an end. It's a cycle of violence we are doomed to repeat over and over (and we have been doing that for more than a 100 years). But also in contrast to that, the end that isn't an end is hopeful maybe, with the rain coming to wash way the violence and bring rebirth (?) (I'm just listing all the things that rain does now...). It maybe shows that now we are clean of what has happened in the past, and we can chose to stop the cycle from repeating itself. And we kind off do, with the young monk helping the girl.

I have a "wild" idea about the timeline. What if what we think is the end shown in the first part, isn't the end really. Maybe the circle is a spiral. It's kind off circular but not round. And as it goes around, the events are slightly different everytime. That may account for the "paradoxes".

[–] godewey (16472) 7 years ago

I really think the second part was meant to feel differently. It was the only story that didn't
take place in Macedonia. If you were in in Macedonia during this war it would feel much
different than If you were in London. Something else I though about is that Anne was married but
had 2 men in her life. She was also pregnant. By the end of the movie she was alone.
She had lost both men to this war without ever leaving her home.

I agree it really doesn't have and end. I do think he wanted to show although this happens
and keeps happening it's not a lost cause. People have the opportunity to stop it. People have
a chance to change it.

I love that theory. I also think that's exactly what he wanted. To show the endless meaningless
violence that can be changed.

One of the main paradoxes that stands out is when Alex sent pictures to Anne.
It was of the young girl getting shot. Like he was there. Then in one of the pictures he was
actually in a picture.
One thing that I have no answer for is when the priest told the girl he had an uncle who
was a photographer In London. Then in the second story Anne gets a call from somebody
looking for Alex. We assume it was the young priest calling. Nothing was ever said about again.
I know the director was going after something with this. Just not sure what it was.

Remember the funeral at the beginning, showing the 2 bodies.
After Alex got to his home did you realize who it was getting buried?
I recognized the cousin but didn't pick up that it was Alex.

[–] MinaVladimir (4086) 7 years ago

Not only did Anne lose both men, but that little girl in the restaurant (who didn't look like a little girl) was also, I presume, orphaned. Both victims of this senseless war, fought a continent over.

About the women in the film. With the exception of the Albanian girl, it was the men who were the active ones. And the girl herself was masculanised, with her short hair and the way she was dressed. Now this could've been just good ol' Balkan sexism, or it could've been intentional. Because in situations like these, it's the women who are left crying over their dead men and having to pick up the pieces. We are not usually the active aggressors. What do you think?

The paradox you mention did confuse me when I was watching the film and I still can't say what happened there. That type of thing is what my theory is mostly about. Think of it as a time travel film, or Groundhog Day. It's like a loop (I still like the spiral, but loop fits better maybe), and every go around, things are slightly different as if they are influencing eachother. But unlike in Groundhog Day where we saw the many loops the characters had to go through, here we saw just the one. Um... does this make any sort of sense? I might be overthinking here slightly, and I'm starting to confuse myself, so I'll stop for now.

I didn't even notice there were two bodies. But you have a few viewings on me :)

[–] godewey (16472) 7 years ago

The men were definitely the aggressors. Which seems to be case in most of the time.
The girl had short hair because her grandfather cut it off. She had gotten caught
with the man she eventually killed. That's why he kept calling her names and hitting her.
We don't know if she was forced by the man or not or how many times the were together.
We do know she went back there with the intention to kill him.
She became an aggressor. Her father had been killed, her grandfather was a harsh man.
Maybe showing changing times that women are now ready to fight.

In the first story there was a funeral. They were burying two people.
They covered them with white sheets and were pouring wine over them.
The ones mans face was clear the other we really only saw part of it and his nose.

At the beginning the older priest told the younger one that rain was coming.
He then said it's already raining over there. This was at the same time that Alex
was being killed. This is presumably at the same time Anne's husband was being killed.
At the end we see the funeral again with Anne standing there. So it would make sense.
This all might be part of the paradoxes though.

I now see more of what you are talking about with your theory.
It is an interesting way of thinking about it. I will have to think more on this.

Quite a few years ago I read an interview with Milcho Manchevski and he explained
what he was going for with this movie. I don't remember a lot of it but it was very
interesting. I do remember him saying that a lot of it is open to interpretation.

[–] MinaVladimir (4086) 7 years ago

When grandpa cut off her hair he took away her femininity (that's why you would cut off a woman's hair in a situation like that). So I see it more like, when you remove the female influence from a society you get a bunch of people killing eachother over nothing. The women weren't that keen on all the division and the war stuff. The girl (besides all the things that went on in the story) became an aggressor after she was made male, essentially.

I may be wrong, but I don't think Macedonia was involved in the war at that time. So what the priest said could mean, they're fighting over there now, but that will make it's way over here as well. It may have been Manchevski's way of telling to the Macedonians to look at what's going on in their own country. They too are divided, have much the same problems as the Serbs and the Bosnians and so on. But it still _can_ be prevented. The London part fits in this context, because it may be in another country, but that doesn't mean much. And by setting it in a Western country, it's all the more shocking when such violence errupts there.

So, a cautionary tale maybe?

Shame you don't remember a lot from that interview, it would've been nice to read some of his explanation. But we are doing _a lot_ of interpretation, that's for sure.

[–] godewey (16472) 7 years ago

I have seen this movie countless times. This has never even crossed my mind.
That is absolute genius. I always viewed it has the grandfather cut her hair to
make her less attractive to men and to teach her a lesson.
I never thought of it in terms of taking away her femininity. Brilliant observation.
I really don't know why you still surprise me. I should be used to it by now.

It's very possible it was a warning. You said something earlier about the rain and
what it represents. I think that fits into this too. The storm is over there but very shortly
it will here. The feeling before a storm. You know something is coming but you don't
know how bad it will be until it gets there. Even if the storm is bad life goes on as usual.
I also think it has a message that we have to take sides. We can't go through life
sitting on the fence. Right or wrong we have to choose.

I will have to try to find that interview. It must be online somewhere.

[–] MinaVladimir (4086) 7 years ago

See, what did I say about the female influence! lol

Yes, life goes on. I think that's one of the reasons the calf birth and the wedding were in there. That's the weel of life continuing to turn, despite all the death.

I'm sure it's online, everything is online.

[–] godewey (16472) 7 years ago

Yes Mina I know all about the female influence.
No need to keeping banging on about it.
You win.

[–] MinaVladimir (4086) 7 years ago

There you go, being a guy again. All I meant was that it was a different perspective.

Lets not derail this thread too with our nonsense, please.

[–] godewey (16472) 7 years ago

Can't help it. I am a guy.

I know what you meant and I agree.

No derailing.
I don't want you going all Marianne on me.

[–] MinaVladimir (4086) 7 years ago

I might go directly to Lorena!

[–] godewey (16472) 7 years ago

This is exactly why I'm saying nothing.

[–] Drmccormack (743) 7 years ago

Well, you two have really said it all. I love reading your observations here. This kind of chat is my favorite. I just finished watching this and it's devastating. Don't make fun of me, but I feel very emotional after seeing this. I'm just remembering what I felt like in 1994 about the war. I'm thinking about all the people I've met since that time from those countries. I'm wondering how anyone survived it. I've never seen this or even heard of this movie. It's a masterpiece. I love it. The ambiguity of the timeline is perfect because the entire subject is so ambiguous. It's so beautiful too. The photography is amazing. I think I missed a lot of the dialogue because the subtitles were covered by other subtitles so sometimes I was a bit confused. Wasn't Kiril such a sweet character? It just feels like we haven't learned a damn thing since then. I guess that's why it's so upsetting. After the war, I honestly felt some hope about the world changing. This was around the same time as Rwanda and the Congo exploded and it was all recorded for us to see so I thought now that we can see how evil this is, we'll change. It's the same. It's very depressing.

[–] godewey (16472) 7 years ago

I'm so happy you got to watch this movie. I apologize for the subtitles. I tried for several hours to find
a good video of this film.
If you ever get the chance watch it again in a more conventional setting please do.
This film bears repeating. The more you watch it the more you appreciate it.

I couldn't make fun of you because I felt the same way the first time I saw this film.
Kiril certainly was. He gave up everything he'd ever known for somebody he'd just met.

We haven't learned anything. I often think we never will.
He tells us the circle is not round. It doesn't have to be. We can change it.
Often sounds like nobody is listening.

If you ever get the chance also watch Sometimes In April. It was an HBO movie about the genocide in Rwanda.
In many ways it more powerful than this movie. Both of these movies have stayed with me since
the first time I saw them.

I'm really glad you got to watch this. I knew you would appreciate it.

[–] Drmccormack (743) 7 years ago

No apologies about the subtitles, please. I'm grateful you found a way for me to watch it. I did look for it on YouTube but I couldn't find any English at all.