Svetat e golyam i spasenie debne otvsyakade

Been from Bulgaria, knowing the country, the traditions, the mentality of the people I can tell, that it was great and honest acting - just as you could meet the people and their spirit in the streets.

To my luck, I live in Germany and can also identity and totally understand and even see some of my own experience, feelings and everything the characters are going through on the silver screen as I did myself in the most realistic, authentic and beautifully possible way by settling to an other country. Not only having this background - and even the same name, as the main character Alex - this movie can touch your heart.

Knowing some current Bulgarian movies - in my opinion - this is definitely THE best movie of the past few years. Honestly, I cannot remember anything more touching form any country for some past time. I had wet eyes during some scenes - either it was from laughing or from really deep emotion.

This movie deserves watching.

Pros: Very natural film. Very good reproduction of the communist Bulgaria and the lives of people who tried to survive that time outside and inside Bulgaria. The emotions go through the whole film without breaks. Excellent acting, excellent cinematography by inter-twisting the past and the present without losing the pace of emotions. Very simple and strong plot. Another confirmation that the perfection is actually in simplicity.

Cons: One mark on the leading actor Carlo Ljubec...his accent made it difficult to go deep in the role. As if he was struggling with speaking out his lines in Bulgarian which was not an advantage but Miki Manolovic play was so strong that balanced this.

I can not agree with Juan Brujo's review. Everything in the film industry is a cliché. There is nothing new in the ideas , in the illations etc.. But what makes this movie unique is the way that it is presented. This film is an art. It is like an opera, not everybody can understand it and feel it, but it could make you cry or think deeply about the things of your life. So in my opinion the last review is SUPERFICIAL, or the guy who has written it mistook the movie. It definitely deserves an Oscar. I STRONGLY RECOMMEND you to watch it. You will not lose anything, don't be afraid to watch it. It will "touch" you deep inside.

To Hans Grob and all people that come from Western Europe - it is absolutely understandable why you would never appreciate a film like this - you have never lived in a Communist Country, you don't know what it's like and you probably don't understand the whole idea of the film that well... Mr Hans Grob, the old man in the film that you talking about is not the boy's uncle, it is his Grandfather!

This film may not be a master piece but it definitely has emotional value for Eastern Europeans who have experienced the Communist Regime! It describes the life and the people back then adequately and all facts represent true stories from people's lives! Actors emotions and reactions in the film are very close to what one Bulgarian would say or do so I find the film very realistic and definitely the best productions made by Bulgarians after 1989.

I went to the theater with low expectations of another boring post-totalitarian Bulgarian movie and was pleasantly surprised - it had an actual story which was told consistently, the characters were lively, there were no irritating protracted shots in silence (trademark to many, many other Bulgarian movies) and the dialogue was real. While based on a novel the movie elegantly manages to stay focused and the plot is not overstretched.

Things I didn't like: the one-sided densely evil picture of the totalitarian oppressors that rendered them preposterously inhuman, the clichéd camera (e.g. yellowish retrospectives, rotation around characters while they played backgammon) and superfluous didacticism in some scenes.

All in all it's worth watching, but eight years of script rewriting could yield a bit better result.