Jajda

Saw this at the Rotterdam film festival (IFFR.COM) 2016. Beautiful story with an unusual set of protagonists in an unusual environment, all of that providing for sufficient material to arrive at a believable yet non-standard plot without making things overly complicated. The casting is excellent, so is the acting by all the people we see appearing. Tiny details to augment the situation make the film perfect.

Of course, what happens it neither revolutionary nor particularly novel, but I like these basic stories where all details in the final product have their proper time and place. The synopsis on the IMDb website may not sound welcoming, but the actual story is much better than what it seems at first sight. The ambiguous title may provide for some clues what it is all about.

Brilliant actors, intriguing imagery charged with nuances, subtle details telling half the story, so much kept untold and left to the viewer to think about it and imagine it. There is not even a hint of too much drama or farfetched characters and situations despite the ending. I like the way the film leads you to kind of understanding the characters and their actions without judging them. One of those "small" movies that you remember for d long time - perhaps not the exact story but the feeling of it. I saw it twice and I love it. I wonder why it isn't more popular. On the other hand it might add to its charm - having it as your personal discovery.

The characters of "Thirst" revolve around a feisty teenage dowser who (with the help of her well-digger father) unearths a trickle of suppressed desires in a poor family in rural, drought-stricken Bulgaria.

But don't let the word "feisty" fool you: while this film generally resembles a typical American indie film, it is somewhat un-Hollywood in its slow pace, fatalism, and lack of sentimentality or Puritanical attitude. "Thirst" is driven more by character and situation than plot or theme. Compared to typical American films, there's less drama and it's less cute, more raw. Well, on a scale of "Hello, My Name Is Doris" to "The Witch", let's say medium rare.

There are missteps. Too often oblique shots with seemingly artistic intentions don't work right - the editing or tone is off and the authorial intrusion is felt without any benefit to storytelling. More importantly, what little there is in the way of drama I often saw coming a mile away - the slow pacing didn't help - and it still arrived as a deus ex machina.

What Tsotsorkova does get right are the interactions with and reactions to the girl. My favorite parts are when they get slap happy. I felt the shock of broken convention, quickly replaced by the conviction that it was all perfectly in character, and more genuine than the conventional thing to do in that situation. You can tell this is the work of an actor.

Overall, then, a fairly well-made, but not groundbreaking, film that is worth watching for those into indie movies. Not as entertaining as, say, "Hello, My Name Is Doris", but also not as redolent of half-century-old cheese.