Review of Before the Rain

I watched this after reading all the positive comments here. They were all wrong. It has the feel of a film-school movie. The characters have no interest. The story is simple, though a little time-twisted. It feels less archetypal, or mythic, than simply schematic: assembled by a writer without much imagination. Some nice, though very drawn out shots of the landscape. Very slow. No chemistry between the main man and woman. Extraneous scenes of her and her husband (she's having an affair). A killing in a restaurant that also means nothing. Best scenes are early shots of the monastery. Too many closeups of the main actor, who doesn't do much acting. The question of why it's all happening is raised and dropped. In real life it's a terrible situation, and I feel for the real people. But this is a movie, and a bad one.