Review of Eastern Plays (2009) by Chris Z — 26 May 2010

Brilliant! Really amazing, wonderfully shot, great writing, great acting, and the layers of stuff that are happening politically, personally, ideologically, etc are just endless. I immediately wanted to see this film again.

Witty, bittersweet, just beautifuully done. Anyway, this is a story(in Bulgaria) that focuses mainly on Christo Christov, an addict artist scraping a living out of working at a workworking factory, who is working through methadone treatment but has in turn become a heavy alcoholic.

His younger brother escapes his dysfunctional family angrily instead of with Christo's angst, and finds refuge with some politically-involved neo-nazis. Encountering a turkish tourist family, a group of skinheads which includes Christo's brother, they beat up the father.

Christo stumbles drunkenly on the attack, attempts to intervene and is also beaten as his brother and the skinheads run off. The film follows the two brothers as they shrug off the incident, and both attempt desperately to find their way in their lost places and lost lives and seek some kind of happiness in their lives, but as a metaphor for a much larger feeling of loss, change, turmoil and confusion of eastern europe.

It is handled brilliantly though, and with enough humor, beauty, and a dash of hope such that this is not some existential "woe-is-me" drag of a film. Serious, yes, but not relentless hopelessness.

Also of pertinence is that Christo the lead actor (non-professional, essentially plays himself) died shortly after the film finished shooting, which brings another layer of reality and seriousness to this film.

Highly recommended, the best so far that I've seen at SIFF.