Plague

The New Year is a great beginning for Bulgarian art. From January 19 in the neighborhood cinema we will be able to watch the wonderful film "Plague". No matter that it is a "fluy" time - the disease passes quickly and easily, and we foresee a long screen life of our quality cinema production.

Under the magnificent directing and editing of Ivan Vladimirov, the characters from Yordan Yovkov's short story "Through the Plague" (part of "Stara Planina Legends") rise on the big screen (complemented by more characters by Boyan Biolchev himself) - recreated fantastically by the magnificent cast (Alexandra Fuchanska): Svejen Mladenov (chorbadji Yurdan), Evelina Bibova (Elitsa) and Matey Michev (Yono), Dobrin Dosev (Father Matei), Velislav Pavlov (the bad guy), Stanislav Peev (the good guy), Lyudmila Slaneva (Elitsa's mother) and the wonderful Lyubomir Bachvarov (the wise man).

Special mention should be made of the cinematography of Rumen Vasilev, the costumes of Ani Vladimirova and Tatyana Alexandrova, as well as the magnificent music of Petko and Antony Manchevi, complemented by authentic Bulgarian folklore.

"This summer struck a plague in vain, and set fire to all the earth, in the cassabs and in the villages. Not a single village remained, I sinned because of ours!"

The beginning was quite promising, up until most characters became extremely detached from the hopeless reality and loss around them, not showing any remote type of grief or strong expression while facing death of loved ones. Wrestling scenes are simply a joke of acting and directing, not to mention the pointlessly long scenes (which are used throughout the film) devout of any emotional and physical weight to them. I love the main cast and they're more than capable in other films, however, their talent and the story's potential are simply wasted here. Most of the characteristics of what's happening (people's fear, hunger and animalistic survival instincts) which are widely discussed in the film end up poorly executed and some of them not even shown or expressed within the slow and tedious 100 minutes where the watcher is left to imagine what fear, hunger and death is without even seeing it.