In a temperate London restaurant, two people meet to talk about their marital challenges. They both agree that they need more time, not actually realizing that there is really no time left. In the background, away from the real action, an argument that is unexplained has starts to brew, as a waiter is mocked by a wild-eyed stranger. "Sir, I didn't do anything," the waiter claims emphatically to his boss. He looks to be right but it doesn't matter.

We will not have the knowledge of what the stranger's complaint is, only that it shows the opinion of Milcho Manchevski's devastating "Before the Rain": the violence escalates mysteriously and organically, in ways that mean that there cannot be any innocent bystanders in a hair-trigger, explosive world. In a film that unpredictably unfolds, with a Mobius-strip structure curiously like that of "Pulp Fiction," the one constant which becomes an air of foreboding. Seeing a small boy playing with a machine gun, a pregnant woman in a cemetery, the birth of a lamb; any of these things can indicate sudden disaster.
"War torn" is the better likened cliche for events happening near Mr. Manchevski's native Macedonia, but this very film takes a more spontaneous view of violence than that. "War is a virus," propose a doctor in this film, providing an unruly model for uncontrollable peril Mr. Manchevski explores. The rain in the title is the hard rain described by Bob Dylan. And also the Macedonian hilltop determining where much of the film reveals is divided by such a stubborn bitterness that every parts of the landscape have different weather.

It's a special occasion when two first-time directors with films as largely effective as Lee Tamahori's "Once Were Warriors" and "Before the Rain" make their New York debuts on the same day. Mr. Tamahori has the crude force between the two, while Mr. Manchevski has the poetry. Working in an elliptical, sophisticated style, he joined film makers as disparate as Atom Egoyan ("Exotica") and Krzystof Kieslowski ("Red") in finding the deepest meaning to his story in hauntingly inclined connections. Ideas that challenge purpose, like the immutability of violence and hatred, may be best approached in this manner.

"Before the Rain," which opens at Lincoln Plaza, starts with and returns to a remote Macedonian monastery, which could seem a safe haven from random bloodshed. It begins peacefully, with the sight of a beatific-looking young priest, Kiril (Gregoire Colin), working in a vegetable garden. When he returns to his bedroom, he finds a surprise: an Albanian girl, Zamira (Labina Mitevska), with strangely close-cropped hair, lying there on his bed. There’s actually a language barrier between these two, and there’s the added restriction of Kiril's vow of silence.

Death starts to make its entrance as the monks meet for prayers: armed Macedonian villagers arrive; they demand to search for Zamira at the monastery in their hunt, who they mentioned is a killer. So nervous that they wind up shooting a cat, the intruders do not see in Kiril the purity obvious to the audience. They rob him of any refuge he might have known as a young monk, leaving him totally adrift when the episode was over. Mr. Manchevski needs no more dreadful image of an uncertain, dangerous world than the sight of Kiril’s lost at the end of this episode.

This first section of the film is called "Words." The next story that is told, "Faces," looks separate and may or may not really occur next in time. Set in London, it shows Katrin Cartlidge as Anne, working in a photo agency. When first seen, Anne is without purpose looking at two uncovered chests, one of Madonna's, and the other is that of a hollow-eyed, starving man. "Before the Rain" makes use of such juxtapositions with chilly authority, to powerfully ironic effect.

Anne has been involved with a rakish Pulitzer Prize-winning Macedonian photographer, Aleksandar (Rade Serbedzija), with an expressive view of war. "Peace is an exception, not a rule," is what Alex maintains. But meanwhile, Anne's mother blames her pregnant daughter of a different kind of carelessness. "No problem is so formidable that you cannot just walk away from it," her mother says in an uncaring manner. As a matter of fact, "Before the Rain" demonstrates an overwhelming argument for the contrary point of view.

Alex returns back to his family for an episode called "Pictures" after breaking off with Anne at the London sequence moment, (Mr. Serbedzija, a respectful magnetic presence, looks more at ease during the non-English-speaking parts of the film.) Not having visited his place in sixteen years, he sees his home half-destroyed and armed relatives and friends, who happen to be Macedonian Christians, going round the tiny village. Albanian Moslems are doing likewise, nearby at a neighboring settlement.

The former sweetheart of Alex, who might be Anne in another life, lives in the Moslem village and scarcely dares talk to him. That’s not Alex's only motive for sensing how dangerous and absurd these divisions have become. Incidentally, he takes a weapon away from a boy that is half-naked and finds that the uncle of that child looks angry. It is not really clear maybe the uncle thinks the boy is simply irritated to see him lose his gun or he was endangered.

Mr. Manchevski's taste for imprecision sometimes guides "Before the Rain" into clamoring paradoxes, so that it doesn’t unravel with the utterly satisfying completeness which "Pulp Fiction" did; after this movie coils back to its denouement, a minor narrative thread including photographs of Zamira and Kiril is left deliberately without been explained. Neither the occurrence of such loose ends nor the film's gentle straining of its rain metaphor reduces the final impact of an engulfing vision.

Impaled in horror, "Before the Rain" views the promise of violence leak into every last area of its narrative. Mr. Manchevski narrates his story smoothly and leaves his spectators with a warning so strong to be ignored. BEFORE THE RAIN Written (in English, Macedonian and Albanian, with English subtitles) and directed by Milcho Manchevski; edited by Nicolas Gaster; director of photography, Manuel Teran; production designers, Sharon Lamofsky and David Munns; music by Anastasia; produced by Cedomir Kolar, Cat Villiers, Sam Taylor and Judy Counihan; released by Gramercy Pictures. Broadway at 63d Street, at Lincoln Plaza. Running time: 116 minutes. This film isn’t rated. WITH: Labina Mitevska (Zamira), Katrin Cartlidge (Anne), Gregoire Colin (Kiril) and Rade Serbedzija (Aleksandar).