Milcho Manchevski Movies

A successful young doctor with a beautiful wife, a happy child, and a comfortable house finds his life suddenly changed in ways he never thought possible after being injured in a serious car accident. To the outside eye Lazar Perkov (Boris Nacev) has everything -- indeed his friends and colleagues have even gone so far as to christen him with the nickname "Lucky." But appearances can sometimes be deceptive, and despite having all the creature comforts, Lazar is constantly trying to live up to the demands of his overbearing mother and discontented spouse. Every day seems to be pretty much the same for the man they call Lucky, until one day when Lazar barely survives a devastating automobile accident. Upon recovering from his life-threatening injuries, Lazar is confronted by a series of people who appear to die time and again, and always deliver the cryptic message "Return what is not yours. Have respect." Experiencing such visions in dreamland is one thing, but when they begin to invade his waking life, Lazar quickly draws the conclusion that these apparitions are simply lost souls who have yet to find peace in the afterlife. When the specter of an old woman begins speaking in a dialect Lazar can't recognize, the frightened accident survivor seeks out the aid of a linguistics professor in deciphering her message. Despite the fact that the professor always seems to be away at a conference, his wife is more than willing to help. Soon, she and Lazar have entered into a bizarre relationship. Unfortunately for Lazar, the situation only grows more haunting, and as the people around him begin to appear and disappear at random, and his wife appears indifferent to her husband's fate as she departs for a seaside vacation with her lover and child. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

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, All Movie Guide