I went with A. to see the Bulgarian film <em>Ave</em> on Friday night.

There's an interesting story behind this film. Months ago. Maybe in October my B. friend from college wrote to me. She was going a film festival in Washington DC and was trying to decide between seeing the Bulgarian film <em>Ave</em> and some other film. She wanted to know if I'd seen <em>Ave</em> and if it was worth going to see.

Um, what?! I'd never even heard of the film <em>Ave</em>. <a href="http://www.cfi-icf.ca/uploads/screenings/566/lg_Ave-3.jpg"><img class="alignnone" title="Ave" src="http://www.cfi-icf.ca/uploads/screenings/566/lg_Ave-3.jpg" alt="" width="640" height="300" /></a>

A quick google search revealed there was such a film. I figured that I'd somehow been living under a rock and that the film had been released over the summer while I was traveling and I missed it. So I twitted about it. Turns out the film wasn't released in Bulgaria. I guess no one picked up the film for distribution in Bulgaria so it went to international festivals instead. <em>Oh.</em>

Why Bulgarians films in Bulgarian aren't released domestically first makes no sense to me. My sense is that Bulgarians are hungry for modern Bulgarian films <em>and</em> that Bulgarians are making some pretty great films.

Anyhow until this week, I'd forgotten about <em>Ave</em> when the film was released in Bulgaria. So I finally saw the film. I liked it. I think. <!--more-->

The plot is basically this boy and girl meet while hitchhiking across Bulgaria. She tells a series of lies to the people who pick them up often getting them in trouble. My single compliant about the plot is that it seems to take them a long time to get to Ruse from Sofia when the two aren't actually that far apart. Granted I've never actually hitchhiked anywhere so maybe I'm underestimating that part of the plot.

The camera work is probably the best part. The opening captures Sofia at its worst--grey sky, grey block building, dirty streets. This darkness permeates the entire film from rainy days to nighttime scenes in a semi-truck or around a fire with junkies to the grey of the Danube river. There was no escape from the grey but that of course was part of the point.

The boy and girl, who never know each other's names, wear standard teenage fair baggy pants, hoodies, jackets and the boy sports a backpack while the girl carries a messenger bag all in shads of black, navy blue, dark red and green. There's nothing flashy here. Well aside from a pair of shoplifted white sun glasses.

My one complaint is that the characters are hard to understand sometimes. Okay, okay. I was watching in Bulgarian without subtitles so I was never going to get everything. I knew that going in. But really, there was a lot of mumbling. I wanted the volume a little louder and I wanted everyone in the film to enunciate a little more. I found the girl, Ave, especially difficult to understand. This was frustrating because much of the movie revolves around her lies and the way that she interacts with the boy, Kamen.

The problem of course is that this mumbling is part of the way the characters are created. So it's impossible really to eliminate it. Teenagers mumble and speak haltingly all of the time.

The part I am still thinking about is the ending of the film. Don't worry. I am not going to tell how it ends. It's just to say this, the film just ends. I wasn't expecting the end. I wanted more of a resolution. I told A. this and he told me: no Bulgarian film have happy endings.

On that note, here's an <a href="http://europeanfilmawards.eu/en_EN/film/790" target="_blank">interesting piece written by the director Konstantin Bojanov with a great video clip of the film</a> explaining the background to this film. Oh and another interview with Konstantin Bajanov which focuses on<a href="http://www.fest21.com/en/blog/robert_bodrog/taking_bulgarian_cinema_on_the_road_an_interview_with_director_konstantin_bojanov" target="_blank"> the creation of the screenplay and filming in Bulgari</a>a.