Petar Valchanov & Kristina Grozeva are back--with another dark & winning com-dram, GLORY

Remember The Lesson, that black, bleak Bulgarian film that opened just over two years ago? Memorable and more, that movie prodded me to conclude that we would be seeing more from its fine filmmakers, Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov, and sure enough, here they are again, with an even better film, GLORY. The movie begins with the setting of the time on a wrist watch, and the watch ends the film, too, while becoming what is clearly the most important inanimate object in this very lively movie.

The two filmmakers, shown at left, with Mr. Valchanov on the right, have only grown in the two-year interim, now handing us a tale that once again shows their home country to be a place of enormous, endemic corruption, hypocrisy and ugliness, probably not at all far -- simply smaller -- from what the USA, under our current regime, will soon become. Our "hero," Tzanko, played with remarkable skill and a genuineness that scorches by Stefan Denolyubov (below) is a quiet, surprisingly honest -- given the state of Bulgaria -- railroad worker with a speech impediment. As with many movie characters who carry such a burden, this fellow, too, is sad, moving and sometimes difficult to watch as he struggles mightily to make himself understood.

When Tzanko, one day during his rounds checking and tightening the railroad tracks, comes upon a open and spilling-out sackful of money, he turns it in to the police. Due to a just-breaking scandal and a nosy TV reporter, the Transport Minister and his PR staff immediately set about making Tzanko into the public "hero" he would rather not be, and in the process starting a set of actions/reactions that become hugely destructive.

If this sounds like the basis of a great black comedy, it is. But calling this film Capra-esque, as some have done, seems to me a misnomer. Frank Capra would utterly blanch at the horrific outcome here, deserved as it might be. Capra had a great sense of irony and an appreciation of the bleak and black, but this is, well, something else. 

Fortunately the two filmmakers have rounded up another great cast, led by two of the actors who also appeared in The Lesson: Mr. Denolyubov and the leading lady, Margita Gosheva (above), who, once again does an incredible job of placing us in the mind, body and emotions of a "public servant" so wrapped up in her own needs and desires that she, like the boss above her and the underlings below her, have lost way too much of their humanity.

And yet we do identify with this woman, Julia, who, with her significant other, is trying to conceive a child and just wants, don't we all?, to live the good life. To this end, what she does, blithely and finally shockingly, paves the way to endless grief for our hero -- his poor pet rabbits are but the tip of the iceberg -- and finally to something she so completely deserves for which she will never understand the reason behind, so wrapped up in herself and her world is this poor woman.

Once again, the no-longer-Communist countries of Eastern Europe -- from Poland, Romania and Bulgaria all the way to Russia itself -- are held up to the greatest ridicule by their own filmmakers. No doubt deservedly, too, with this ironically titled movie taking its place as one of the best yet.

Another auspicious debut from Film Movement, Glory gets its U.S. theatrical premiere this coming Wednesday, April 12, at Film Forum in New York City, and will open here in South Florida at the Tower Theater, Miami, on May 15. To view all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, simply click here and scroll down.

Mothering, Bulgarian-style, in Maya Vitkova's gorgeous personal/political oddity, VIKTORIA

What a knockout (for a good while, at least) is VIKTORIA, the near-new (made in 2014) film from Maya Vitkova, shown below, which is said to be based somewhat on the filmmaker's own life -- with a little magic realism/ absurdity tossed in for good measure. We've long heard that popular phrase advising us that "the political is personal" -- or is it the other way around? -- but seldom do we see something that brings this idea to such specific life, if in awfully free-ranging fashion.

Viktoria, the character, is the spawn of Boryana and her live-in boyfriend who occupy a one-room apartment with Boryana's mom.The movie begins with their morning lovemaking, with mom unhappily listening. Well, this is Bulgaria under Communism, so there's little chance for even a separate bedroom. Though mom is still a true believer, who, according to Boryana, sacrificed her daughter's betterment for that of the Communist Party's, Boryana herself seems like a person drained of all hope. When her BF asks what they will name the baby he expects to have just helped conceive, she asks blankly, "What baby?"

And, yes, there is a baby -- an absolute delight of a cutie, above, who is born without a belly button (we won't get into how this is medically possible; that's part of the magic realism/symbolism on display) and so becomes a "hero" of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, and a clear sign to the powers- that-be that Bulgarian babies no longer need umbilical cords. What a country!

Ms Vitkova's rendition of the country's Communist leaders, along with her hilarious portrayal of Viktoria's education and elementary school years, where she is played by the very game Daria Vitkova (above, and the filmmaker's niece) -- how the power structure facilitates her every wish and need -- shows us a country that seems to have grown stupider with each ensuing decade. No wonder our Boryana is depressed.

She is also, as portrayed by actress Irmena Chichikova, shown above and below, one hell of a beauty, with a face the camera just loves. And this is where Vitkova begins to go a bit off-kilter. She sticks that camera on Chichikova's lovely, dark, deep face far too often and too long. For awhile we're so besotted with this weird tale and the pyrotechnics of the Communist nit-witticisms that we march along happily, both marvelling at and appalled by what we see and hear.

But the movie goes on for over two and one-half hours, and once the fall of Communism occurrs and Capitalism has reared its almost equally ugly head, much of the fun goes out of the film, and we're left with a little too much artsy-fartsy. feminist-to-a-fault filmmaking that drains the energy from Viktoria, both the character, who by now is a very sad young adult (played by Kalina Vitkova, another of the filmmaker's nieces, shown below), and the film itself.

This is too bad, because there is so much to recommend about the movie, from its use of symbolism -- cutting the other umbilical cord to the red-button phone (below) that links Viktoria to her country's leader, and showing us the great need for (and multitudinous ways to dispense) milk -- to its rich cinematography (by Krum Rodriguez) to the director's often buoyant and funny visual and verbal sense (Ms Vitkova also wrote the ambitious screenplay).

The film has its own rhythm, as well, and it's quite slow, and sometimes repetitious. But as the three generations of women we meet break further apart and then try to feebly bond again, the movie also begins to turn a bit too sentimental -- even if Vitkova does not, thankfully, go all out in this direction. We hope for better days for at least two of the three generations, for Viktoria especially. But given what we see and learn about Bulgaria through these eyes, the future is not particularly bright. There's an enormous and very real longing here for "elsewhere."  Venice, anyone?

Viktoria -- a Bulgaria/Romania co-production released in the USA by Big World Pictures and running 156 minutes -- opens in its U.S. theatrical premiere this Friday, April 29, in New York City at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema and IFC Center, and on May 13 in Chicago at Facets Cinematheque, and then in Los Angeles on June 10 at Laemmle's Royal. Elsewhere? Maybe, if some positive word-of-mouth builds. Goodness knows, this movie does not easily compare with much else you'll have seen. And for real film buffs, that may be enough to entice.

A Bulgarian learning experience: Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov's riveting THE LESSON

There are so many lessons learned by the school-teacher heroine of THE LESSON (Urok), not to mention by us enrapt viewers, that it is difficult to know where to begin: First, maybe, this: Don't under any circumstances allow your vehicle-obsessed, no-account husband to handle the family's finances. Moving on, once it is clear that your very home is about to be auctioned off from under you by your local bank, please don't get involved with your town's skeevy, sleazy money-lender unless you're comfortable with paying back your loan via sex work. There are many of these life lessons, small and large, to be gleaned -- if you've got the balls to watch. Our protagonist, who is offered little choice in the matter, very quickly manages to put herself smack in the middle of lies, avarice, bureaucracy and corruption involving both the individual and the state.

Writers/directors Kristina Grozeva (below) and Petar Valchanov (at left, who also edited the film) begin their little game in the classroom, as we see written on the blackboard, "My wallet has been stolen." We westerners will immediately imagine that this is a class for visitors to Eastern Europe who need to know the important catch phrases that will be of use to us. But, no: Our teacher, Nade, has written the phrase to alert her class that her wallet really has been stolen -- by one of them. And she intends to get it back.

Things do not go quite as Nade plans, and it soon seems clear that this woman has a tad too much certainty about how life should roll out. (Perhaps she was raised elsewhere than Bulgaria, where the film is set.) In any case, she is soon up to her ears in stuff that she ought not to have to handle, and watching her wriggle and cajole, plead and insist is painful but somehow also bracing.

This is due in large part to the work of the fine actress -- Margita Gosheva (above and below, right) -- who plays Nade. Ms Gosheva manages to swing on a dime from confused and vulnerable to angry and determined without missing a beat, including all of those little moments that lead from one fraught state into the next.

In the course of the film, we meet everyone from Nade's insignificant other (center, right, above), though he proves awfully good with the couple's young child (at left, above); her successful and fairly wealthy father (center left, above) whom she accuses of causing her mother's untimely sickness and death; the fellow she does freelance translation for and who owes her a lot of back pay; her students and co-workers; and a few other townspeople who interact with our gal, as the vise in which she finds herself grows tighter, faster.

One of the odd and interesting things about this movie is how suspenseful it is, even as we're learning more and more about Nade and the ins and out of Bulgarian society. It is finally a toss-up as to which consumes us more. Nade's moralistic tendencies both help and hinder her, as she must lower her "standards" over and over in order to achieve her ends. By the film's finish, little remains of the "ordered world," pretense though it may have been, that greeted us at the film's beginning.

The fungibility of everything from relationships and power to forms of payment and transportation come into play here, and Nade proves surprisingly adept at rolling with the punches. Some of the strongest scenes include an apology she must make to her father's girlfriend and her coming to understand exactly what her use of the loan shark (above, right) means to the well-being of her family.

If there is a weakness to the movie, it arrives with the penultimate scene in which the filmmakers have our heroine decide to make things right -- but then neglect to show us how this happens. Oh, we know what has happened, all right, but leaving the scene out makes the ending seem far too easy and thus unearned. We allow this because we so keenly hope that Nade will succeed. But this is not quite the same thing as giving us a fully realized film.

We'll hope that the next movie from this pair, individually or together, proves even better because, clearly, the two are banging on the door to the pantheon of first-rate realist filmmakers. We shall hear from them again. Meanwhile, The Lesson -- from Film Movement, in Bulgarian with English subtitles and running 105 fast minutes -- opens this Wednesday, March 4, at Film Forum in New York City. To see further screenings around the country, click here and scroll down.