Love and war divide two brothers in a drama from award-winning director Milcho Manchevski, his first since his acclaimed 1994 debut Pred Dozhdot. After an elderly woman (Rosemary Murphy) gets the better of a burglar (Adrian Lester) who has broken into her apartment, she decides to tell him a story about her family to give him a perspective on an individual's legacy to their family. Luke (David Wenham) and Elijah (Joseph Fiennes) are brothers and cowboys in the American West near the turn of the
century. Luke and Elijah are both in love with Lilith (Anne Brochet), a woman who works in an upscale brothel, and when Elijah marries her, it puts a permanent rift in his relationship with his brother. Luke leaves the country and travels to Macedonia, where he becomes involved with a group of resistance fighters who are trying to topple Turkish occupation of their land; a skilled gunman, Luke soon becomes a valuable member of the Macedonian nationalist forces, and falls in love with Neda (Nikolina Kujac), a woman fighting alongside the loyalists. However, Luke discovers he can't entirely leave his past behind when he discovers Elijah has become a hired gun who has joined the Turkish forces. Dust was the opening night attraction at the 2001 Venice Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
The two eras presented in this film may display similar violent dispositions but ultimately their overriding sensibilities are just too different to integrate.
Essentially, the story is of a burglar (Lester) who breaks into a house of an old woman (Murphy) in New York and she tells him the story of American cowboys (Fiennes and Wenham) in the Ottoman Empire in Macedonia and their tangled fraternal love/hatred when confronted with a beautiful woman. It's a story that dips in
and out of narrative timelines. David Wenham and Joseph Fiennes play two cowboy brothers that wind up in Macedonia, fighting on different sides in a bloody conflict between the Macedonian natives and the oppressive Ottomans. Luke fights on the Ottoman side because they pay in gold, Elijah on the Macedonian because they are the right side. There are many bloody scenes here and it is one thing that I don't like with this film. The overall carnage gets too exhausting, simply put. And there is no real thrill in it either, except for the villains getting killed. The parallel stories intertwining aren't nearly as effective here as in "Before the rain". The plot with the black burglar and the old woman is weak and ineffective. Only the dramatic relationship between Luke (Wenham)and Elijah (Fiennes) and their rivalry over the beautiful and headstrong Lilith (unknown but solid actress) is what makes this film interesting and worthwhile. Wenham gives a really powerful performance here and even overshadows both Fiennes and the rest of the cast. Well worth watching.
December 5, 2008
Danielle S
First of: David Wenham fan!
Now that that's out, he makes one HOT cowboy...even though he sounds a little weird.
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