In three linked stories,a young couple in North Macedonia is torn apart because they are from different ethnic groups; a North Macedonian war photographer in London sees his pregnant girlfriend-agent shot; and he returns to his home village to become involved in the internecine violence between the same ethnic groups as in the first part.
I'm certainly no expert in North Macedonian cinema, but the photography in that country is beautiful; it looks little changed in the ninety years between the Manaki brothers' first movies and 1994 -- hardly surprising in a land settled perhaps five thousand years ago. What's a century, more or less.
The point is, of course, the pointlessness of the hatred that inspires all this bloodshed. The camerawork, the theme, and the fact that it seems to have been the first movie released in North Macedonia after that country gained its independence were enough to gain it an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Picture.
I'm certainly no expert in North Macedonian cinema, but the photography in that country is beautiful; it looks little changed in the ninety years between the Manaki brothers' first movies and 1994 -- hardly surprising in a land settled perhaps five thousand years ago. What's a century, more or less.
The point is, of course, the pointlessness of the hatred that inspires all this bloodshed. The camerawork, the theme, and the fact that it seems to have been the first movie released in North Macedonia after that country gained its independence were enough to gain it an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Picture.