Film ReviewsGlory: Different Faces, Different TimesApr 20, 2017 Anchorage Press
|
|
Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov are a filmmaking team that are not household names, but they should be. Together, the Bulgarian filmmakers are taking the independent international film world by storm with their “newspaper-clippings” trilogy. As implied, the films are based on stories about average human beings that somehow made the paper. The series ignores or bypasses the sensationalist depictions that can accompany films about political corruption, social unrest, and brutality to create social parables that are intimate and complex. As the moral dilemmas unfold, and characters stumble, the directors keep an empathetic focus.
The first film in the trilogy is Urok (The Lesson, 2014), which is about a middle-school teacher whose home is in foreclosure as a result of a derelict, unemployed and alcoholic husband. There are many other characters and situations that add to her stress until she takes the reigns of the chaos. Glory (Slava, original title, 2016) is the second in the trilogy, the third story is still under development as the directors reportedly pour over newspapers to find the right combination of events and characters.
Glory is about a man, Tsanko Petrov played by Stefan Denolyubov, who has worked as a lineman for the railroad for a quarter century. Tsanko ‘s job is to walk a portion of the railroad every day, checking the nuts and bolts and tightening them as he goes with a large wrench. One day he finds a large amount of cash by the side of the tracks — too much to keep perhaps — and he turns it in to the authorities. An act and a story that is too hard to pass up by the Public Relations (PR) department of the Ministry of Transport. The PR department is headed by Julia Staykova who is played by Margita Gosheva (also the lead in The Lesson). Both actors are at the top of their game and while their respective character’s direct interaction with one another is amid a brief frenzy of PR activity and irritating circumstances, the actors establish a connection between the characters that remains unbroken and only intensifies by the end.
Julia’s job is straight forward, to arrange a ceremony in which the Minister will come in, thank Tsanko for his actions, give him a gift, get a few photos and a story and be done with it. The plot pivots when Tsanko’s old watch with an inscription in the back from his father is misplaced amid the PR commotion. For the character, the watch has personal significance—and also the watch works, as opposed to the watch presented to him by the Minister. From a wider vantage point, the watch, an old “Slava” meaning “Glory” has socio-political significance. Slava watches were produced in the then Soviet Union in the 1920s as non-military watches and they continues to be in production until a couple of decades ago. The watch symbolizes a different era, and although it functions for Tsanko, the reality of these Soviet watches is that they were fraught with mechanical problems even though the watches received awards throughout the decades as the company adapted its technology. Like the Soviet Union, the Slava Company no longer exists and its old factory was torn down in 2011 for new development. In Glory, the red tape gets in the way of an honorable and honest resolution to the problem, and inadvertently sets off a series of other events as Tsanko is simply trying to get his watch back.
While on the surface, and in a linear perspective, Glory is about Tsanko’s story, the parallel story of Julia is just as strong, if not stronger, because it requires some thinking about women’s positions in a misogynistic and bureaucratic system. Julia fights for everything — she has to — even control of her own body, and in the end is held disproportionally responsible for others’ lack of judgement and stupidity. Gosheva delivers the character of Julia with such artistry that viewers grow to love her, her temper, extreme actions and all the humanity that is just under her skin. Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov deliver a film with similar textures to Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dekalog from the late 1980s that, like Glory exposes ethical and moral issues in ways that everyone can comprehend.
Showtimes:
- Art House-
Monday, 4/24
8:00 pm
Run time: 1:41 h
Movie Rating: Not rated.
The first film in the trilogy is Urok (The Lesson, 2014), which is about a middle-school teacher whose home is in foreclosure as a result of a derelict, unemployed and alcoholic husband. There are many other characters and situations that add to her stress until she takes the reigns of the chaos. Glory (Slava, original title, 2016) is the second in the trilogy, the third story is still under development as the directors reportedly pour over newspapers to find the right combination of events and characters.
Glory is about a man, Tsanko Petrov played by Stefan Denolyubov, who has worked as a lineman for the railroad for a quarter century. Tsanko ‘s job is to walk a portion of the railroad every day, checking the nuts and bolts and tightening them as he goes with a large wrench. One day he finds a large amount of cash by the side of the tracks — too much to keep perhaps — and he turns it in to the authorities. An act and a story that is too hard to pass up by the Public Relations (PR) department of the Ministry of Transport. The PR department is headed by Julia Staykova who is played by Margita Gosheva (also the lead in The Lesson). Both actors are at the top of their game and while their respective character’s direct interaction with one another is amid a brief frenzy of PR activity and irritating circumstances, the actors establish a connection between the characters that remains unbroken and only intensifies by the end.
Julia’s job is straight forward, to arrange a ceremony in which the Minister will come in, thank Tsanko for his actions, give him a gift, get a few photos and a story and be done with it. The plot pivots when Tsanko’s old watch with an inscription in the back from his father is misplaced amid the PR commotion. For the character, the watch has personal significance—and also the watch works, as opposed to the watch presented to him by the Minister. From a wider vantage point, the watch, an old “Slava” meaning “Glory” has socio-political significance. Slava watches were produced in the then Soviet Union in the 1920s as non-military watches and they continues to be in production until a couple of decades ago. The watch symbolizes a different era, and although it functions for Tsanko, the reality of these Soviet watches is that they were fraught with mechanical problems even though the watches received awards throughout the decades as the company adapted its technology. Like the Soviet Union, the Slava Company no longer exists and its old factory was torn down in 2011 for new development. In Glory, the red tape gets in the way of an honorable and honest resolution to the problem, and inadvertently sets off a series of other events as Tsanko is simply trying to get his watch back.
While on the surface, and in a linear perspective, Glory is about Tsanko’s story, the parallel story of Julia is just as strong, if not stronger, because it requires some thinking about women’s positions in a misogynistic and bureaucratic system. Julia fights for everything — she has to — even control of her own body, and in the end is held disproportionally responsible for others’ lack of judgement and stupidity. Gosheva delivers the character of Julia with such artistry that viewers grow to love her, her temper, extreme actions and all the humanity that is just under her skin. Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov deliver a film with similar textures to Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Dekalog from the late 1980s that, like Glory exposes ethical and moral issues in ways that everyone can comprehend.
Showtimes:
- Art House-
Monday, 4/24
8:00 pm
Run time: 1:41 h
Movie Rating: Not rated.