I saw the Bulgarian movie <a title="Footprints in the Sand" href="http://www.programata.bg/index.php?p=30&amp;l=2&amp;c=1&amp;id=60969" target="_blank">Footprints in the Sand (Стъпки в пясъка)</a> this past week.  I watched in Bulgarian with a Bulgarian friend. I didn't understand everything, far from it in fact, but I got the gist of things and these days that's good enough for me.

The basic plot is this: a guy Slavi escapes from Bulgaria during communism. He spends part of this time in Austria and part of this time in the United States. Ultimately, he returns after the wall falls and ends up retelling most of the story of his life in the Sofia Airport.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkXmIjOZF8Q">Footprints in the Sand</a>

While the flash backs to life in Bulgaria during communism were interesting, I was most struck by the representations of the United States through a foreigner's eyes. Especially the moment in which Slavi is a truck driver in the States and in a truck stop using the bathroom and while watching the news. He is in the middle-of-nowhere America and sees on tv the Berlin Wall falling. He is ecstatic. Shouting. Jumping around. Singing. Another truck driver and a woman who is maybe a waitress come to see what the commotion is about. Slavi tries to explain but these two Americans don't understand what the big deal is.

For better or worse, that scene seems to sum up much of America. The man and women were not rude to Slavi--they just get what the big deal was. They watched him but couldn't connect with him or share in his excitement.

There was an undercurrent of loneliness in this scene and those that followed. The solitary act of truck driving only enhanced this.

As a result, I've found myself thinking about issues of place and home and how we put roots down as well as the complicated act of return.

I was generally happy with the movie. I will say that it ended more abruptly than I thought it would. And then I found myself a little surprised to learn that this film was based on a true story. I think this is because in someways this story seems like it could be anyone's story. There's nothing really fantastic or unexpected about it.

My Bulgarian friend? Well, less impressed.

Funny, I thought Bulgarians were <em>obliged</em> to like Bulgarian films.

Anyhow, I was interested in why this was the case. It boiled down to this: Slavi didn't <em>do</em> anything with his life (I've  paraphrased). This I thought was interesting criticism and gets at the idea of what we owe ourselves and others who have made sacrifices for us or whom we have left behind.

So for those of my readers who have seen the film, what did you think?