Human Condition
Already in his unforgettable and highly influential Before the Rain; but also in his Cult Western Dust, Milcho Manchevski has used documentary elements for his cinematic storytelling to blur the lines between fact and fiction; as if he was telling his audiences "look; the fiction is always part of the reality, its only how we arrange things and how we construct the story, that makes the difference." In Mothers, that premiered at the TIFF 2010 and stunned audiences there, Manchevski takes these ideas to the extreme: Mothers is a film triptych, containing two fictional and one documentary segment - each of them telling more than one story: a girl who falsely reports a flasher to the police and causes violence to the innocent young man. A film crew of three who sets out for the ever so beautiful Macedonian mountains, documenting old customs and meeting an odd and grumpy brother and sister, who haven't been talking to each other, even though they are the only ones left in the middle of nowhere for years. The 'real' story of numerous old woman in the Macedonian town of Kicevo, who have been raped murdered by a long life neighbor. The horror of the events; as documented by their families and friends, the police and the authorities. Each part stands on its own - only at the end these almost not connected parts come together: Evolving from the single lie of the young girl in the first segment to the numerous different voices in the last part; Manchevski evokes a panomaratic view of life, dozens of stories, with – in spite of all the joy - human capability for destruction lurking always in the realm of the possible. What we take as fact or as fiction is the disturbing and difficult question Manchevski poses upon his audiences; also what to do with these experiences in our lives is not easy to answer at the end. Maybe the last frame of the film can give can give a hint: The young girl; lying upside down on the table at the police station, taking photos with her mobile phone; voiced over by the documentary film team: we film to document; to keep the memory. Even it might be a lie, or a picture turned upside down; we cant help but go on with our lives and work, searching for the truth against all odds. We have to consider Sisiphos a happy man (Albert Camus). Once again, Manchevski has opened his unique and multilayered cinematic world for us: always thought provoking and permanently questioning what he is doing as a filmmaker working in a medium, that can manipulate so easily and is predesignated to all to fast and easy answers.
