Writer and Director: Venci Kostov
Venci Kostov’s assured film begins as a love letter to the rural traditions of Bulgaria but ends as a scathing condemnation of the corruption and racism that underpins a quiet town some distance from the capital, Sofia. Attending his grandfather’s funeral, Victor has returned to the village after 12 years of living in Madrid. All around him are signs of a bucolic community that grows its own food and brews its own alcohol. Initially, Victor’s hometown appears idyllic.
After the burial, as Victor and his father travel back to their house in a tractor, a Romani hawker tempts them with freshly picked watermelons. Liuben is handsome and cocky, openly flirting with Victor and then brazenly asking for a tip from the father, who reluctantly hands over a cigarette. As father and son clamber back on the tractor, Victor keeps turning, looking back, wondering perhaps if Liuben’s seductive manner should be taken seriously.
A relationship doesn’t seem to be on the cards. Presumably, Victor will return to Madrid, where his boyfriend is busy renovating their apartment, while Liuben at the age of 19 has a girlfriend who is pregnant with his child. And then there’s the racial divide; Victor is Bulgarian, the son of a reasonably wealthy farmer, whereas Liuben is Romani living in a derelict orphanage with other Roma on the wrong side of town.
Both young men are considered foreigners, although they were born in the same place. Liuben calls Victor a foreigner because he comes fresh-faced from Madrid; Liuben is perceived as a foreigner as he is Roma, despite having spent his whole life in Bulgaria. He worries that if his papers aren’t signed, he will eventually be classified as stateless, an alien in his own country.
Ostensibly, Kostov’s film will be seen as a gay film as the main thrust of the narrative is concerned with the developing relationships between the two boys, but to view it as just a gay film is to ignore the politics within it. Kostov shows how the Roma are discriminated against in the town, with some even being bundled into people carriers and taken to Greece. However, Kostov never fully elaborates on these scenes; his camera is distant, his characters remain somewhat unknowable. The audience can sometimes only guess at what is happening.
Liuben is also a story of fathers and sons, of memory and ambition, of freedom and tradition. Nevertheless, Kostov’s vision is sparse yet balanced. The Roma community is portrayed in an equally bad light, with young Roma children stealing from freshly dug graves and young men marauding around town looking for trouble. No wonder Victor’s mother left for Spain, although at the film’s end, we can see that Bulgaria’s problems are a worldwide issue, despite the Pride flags that swing happily along the streets of Madrid.
As Victor, Dimitar Nikolov is often blank, and we only get to know him by his actions, like when he takes condoms and lube out of his suitcase, which has been stored in a wardrobe. Bozhidar Asenov may be more of an open book as Liuben, but again, the audience is never sure of his intentions, probably because Liuben is never sure either. Disappointingly, perhaps, he is never granted an interior life, and so, to some extent, he is continually othered, especially in comparison to Victor, whose quietness suggests a deeper intellectualism. In contrast, Liuben is all skin and instinct.
But despite Liuben’s depthless demeanour (sometimes he really is the tricky boy of summer holiday romances), Kostov’s film is compelling with its series of single-shot scenes and its kaleidoscopic montages of people at work or enjoying the entertainments offered at a fairground. All this beauty is stained with shocking brutality.
Liuben screened at the One Fluid Night Festival.
The Reviews Hub Score
Compelling
