A History of What Has Not Yet Happened

Abstract

The practice of history is under siege today from two armies: one made up of theorists, whose writings have called into question the truth claims of traditional historical discourse; another made up of filmmakers, who have stolen the audience for historical stories. Yet it is precisely the attacks from the former army that open the way for us to accept the latter as a new kind of historian - that is, of people who attempt to make meaning out of the traces of the past. This new 'history' on the screen has different rules of engagement with the past than does our traditional written history. It also raises new questions about why we study the past or what we really want to learn from that study. Before the Rain is a historical film that hints at a new kind of history, one set not in the past but in the very near future, a history that has as its burden not to explain what has happened but a history that uses trace elements of the past to serve as both witness of and warning against a potentially destructuve future.

Keywords:

• Narrative Theory Macedonia Film Reality Effect Reading