Viktoria is an imaginative semi autobiographical tale of a girl growing up through the fall of communism and its continuing aftermath in Bulgaria. The eponymous heroine is born in 1979 without a bellybutton, and is immediately proclaimed as the Communist Party's child of the decade, in spite of her mother's ongoing desperation to escape the country. Her family is rewarded with a car and apartment, and the girl has a direct phone line to the party leader. The young Viktoria's every whim is indulged, her every action is applauded and she is treated as a princess who can do no wrong. As the iron curtain falls across Europe her privileges recede and the strains upon her family are laid bare.
This is a story about family and the alienation between generations that is exacerbated by external events. Boryana, Viktoria's mother (superbly played by Irmena Chichikova), has little to do with her own mother (she is more Party member than mother), even though Boryana and her husband share a tiny flat with her until Viktoria's arrival. Viktoria's own independence from her mother is materialised by Viktoria's unusual anatomy and Boryana's inability to express milk for her. Writer and director Maya Vitkova brings a lot of personal baggage to the screen, and manages to make it feel relevant and worthwhile telling next to the simultaneously unfolding geopolitical events. The cinematography is stylish and carefully composed, with clever use of colours to encode the different stages of Viktoria's life and the implied political and familial backdrop. The middle section that focuses on the 10 year old Viktoria's overindulged childhood is itself perhaps a little overindulged, and could have benefited from editing to maintain the pacing.
On the whole Viktoria deftly manages the tricky walk between entertaining and telling an interesting story while being informative about everyday life behind the disintegrating iron curtain.
No comments:
Post a Comment