Stefan Komandarev
Bulgaria
2009
How many films are out there that can actually make you feel thoroughly alive? To what extent should you consider yourself a film enthusiast and not doubt yourself in times that you think you’ve just found one of the best films in the world? This Bulgarian film, literally entitled as “The World is Big and Salvation Prowls on All Sides”, has granted a delightful caress on my heart and a staggering warmth to embrace my ideology which has believed in the enthrallment found after each man’s seemingly inconceivable journey for salvation on the face of a world stricken by pain and anguish. Komanderev’s debut narrative film is dowered by a captivating charm of images with terrific colors and frame composition and with the betrothing power of his connoisseur’s talent of storytelling. The film is a celebration of life; and its howling convergence among the nostalgic past, the mundane present and a hopeful tomorrow. This short-listed movie for the 2009 Academy Awards Best Foreign Language Film category is a charismatic and beautiful motion picture that deserves every recognitions it has received in at least 17 International Awards; so bad though that Bulgaria just almost garnered its first ever nomination at the Oscar; I think the film is very much deserving for it.
The story is told in two time frames: the present time is when Bai Dan went to a Germany to look after his grandson Sashko who is suffering from Amnesia after the car accident that killed his parents; and the past time is during Sashko’s childhood when he, together with his family escaped from Bulgaria to Germany. The second time frame is creatively used as the graphic visualizations of Bai Dan’s attempts to restitute his grandson’s memories. The result of this very resourceful narrative device is so commendable that it rendered an overwhelming quantity of the ineluctable relationship between the past and the present. There is a poignant scene in the first 30 minutes of the movie when Sashko is looking at the pictures his grandfather gave him. The editing intercut from Sashko’s close up shot showing tears rolling out of his eyes to a bedtime story moments of the young Sashko (him) and his mother telling the story of a lost rabbit seeking it way home.
Before the complete intercut, another shot was necessary—an aerial low angle shot of Sashko sitting on a bench on the hospital’s moon-lit gardened; using graphical editing, it slowly crossfades to a baby rabbit sitting on an old dilapidated trunk on a moonlit woods from the storybook Sashko’s mother is was reading to him.
The film went to back to Sashko at the present time, while his mother’s voice continues telling the story. As she says the lines about the mysterious path on the woods assuring the lost baby rabbit that it will take him home, Sashko starts to stand and walk along the path on the hospital garden, and thus, his journey home we all know is about to officially start. That scene is just one of the many scenes that have a compelling power that reunites the past and the present, the living and the deceased, and from there ventures into a time that is not the present nor the past anymore—the future, a time when the present and the past collides.
Definitely a man-centered story, this film obviously defines the transition of a man; that is why the grandfather needed to have a grandson from his son. I appreciate the ambiguous reference of who-is-the-son-and-who-is-the-father in the first 15 minutes of the film. The second to the last part where Sashko is announced as the new king of backgammon in their locale after defeating his grandfather in a tie-breaker in a series of games, is the most efficient way to deliver the message that every man goes and every man comes. What is even more miraculous in this film is despite the fact that it is driven by male characters; I have never detected, not even half a minute of any hiatus interrupting the peaceful balance between men and women. Bai Dan and Sashko are not empowering women at all. They are indeed simple humans seeking for happiness and resolution without owning the power of its ability. Women in this film are equally are not plot-wise equally important, not even story-wise, but they provide salvation. To put this on another pedestal, this woman granting salvation does not bestow it heavenly, or as a God to an immortal. Instead, she also seeks salvation and happiness in return.
The Backgammon is another interesting part of the film. Apparent reasons for its contribution to the film would be life’s metaphor to a game; life is being played with destiny. The backgammon element also coheres to the rest of plot points, like the alleged selling of illegal backgammon boards causing Sashko’s father to be blackmailed by his communist boss to report anti-communist efforts of Bai Dan, the gradual lessons of Bai Dan and Sashko which intercepts with the gradual recovery of Sashko’s memory, and of course the initiation of the grandson to becoming one of the “men” through one of Bulgaria’s more famous pastime.
A good the story is without a good narrative is forgivable, at least for me. Moreover, a good story with an outstanding narrative can never be an excellent film without technical competencies and I know for sure I am not the only one who believes in that. “The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner” has certainly got all those important qualifications to becoming a very good film. Emil Hristow, the cinematographer has done an exquisitely wonderful visual interpretation of the screenplay. Since there are two distinguished time frames in the story, the difference in the treatment of the past and the present are also well identified. The past scenes have a very crisp, yellow-brownish, and thawed texture and colors as if every scene happened in one lovely lazy afternoon. I commend the realization that Hristow did not alter the treatment for the past scenes even when there are really shifts of eventual distress in the course of the escape. Soft shadows from the sun are always almost constant depicting the hope the film has started operating on our minds from its very opening and attempting to cushion the already obvious trouble. The cinematography endowed a dosage of beautiful nostalgia from the past.
The treatment for the present are dominated by cold colors—garish green and promising blue. Soft to almost hard shadows of the sun are still almost constant which creates a very luscious atmosphere. The present time treatment also gave way to even colder colors like gray, and a little touch of larky grounds and Bulgarian soil. The musical score has always been very helpful to any film. In this one, the opening scene alone that has a witty-paced whimsy beat mixed with Sashko’s soliloquy about his birth gave us the a mood that is at first feels very French, or at least European, and at most a mood that foretells the wit of the narrative course.
With the dexterous eyes of Hristow and Komandarev, few remarkable scenes from the film made me feel so conscious of the mundanity of the present moment. As I have been mentioning all throughout, the beauty of the past and present and future are seamlessly conceived in the story and narrative, and furthermore been captured on screen, especially the present scenes. There are moments when Sashko and his grandfather simply sits on benches or old chairs, lies on the grass and talk, and with the appropriate composition, colors, and pace, those simple shots just became very detoxifying and at the same time sweetly intoxicating. The ultimate scene with such power that I can declare could be the one where Sashko and Maria are sitting on a boat dock; Maria lying on Sashko’s lap, plainly talking, with the out of focused lake waters at the background. Then it reminded me of a line I’ve seen on TV—“There is surely no other reason than the single purpose of the present moment”.
Easy is to fall in love with a charmer film, but it takes an ingenuity and a truthful passion for life and films to create a deeply moving film that is not just simply a charmer. The film is teeming with life. It is simply intoxicating to watch a movie that has such an incredible respect for life, abundant sources to feel alive, and a hopeful heart to always begin a journey. The film is not a Utopian movie which would be a sorely pathetic attempt to create a beautiful film. What this film has is the acceptance of the life’s unavoidable loneliness and detriments and the more important thing is the belief that the world is big enough for salvation to bumble around everywhere; and while everybody believes that the world has been infected by selfishness and greed, this film has found a world where love is still plethoric.
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