The Sinking of Sozopol

In 'The Sinking of Sozopol', the measure of one man's life and the people most influential to it is told through the consumption of ten bottles of vodka. This film takes the therapeutic human condition of drinking your sorrows away to a new level. Deyan Donkov, as Chavo, the film's protagonist, does a brilliant job of maintaining the ambivalence and selfishness of his character. Produced and directed by Kostadin Bonev and written by Ina Valchanova, this art house narrative challenges the viewers by leading them into the surreal settings that separate Chavo's dream state from his reality.

The seamless editing by Toma Waszarow was crucial in pulling off this non-linear dreamscape. The continuity from scene to scene was smooth and not thoroughly confusing as some surrealist works often are. In the opening scene, we're immediately immersed in the subtlety of Kostadin Bonev's non-linear structure. It foreshadows a scenario in Chavo's life that's all too common. An uncomfortable confrontation between friend and family. I was compelled to see a man who has lost or abandoned everything and everyone he's ever loved or hated.

Chavo decides to take a trip, but not to Vienna to visit his family as per his doctor's request. Instead as a vision quest, he returns to his hometown of Sozòpol, an ancient seaside town nestled along the Black Sea Coast and his walk down a very melancholy memory lane begins. We're given flashbacks from a time when he and his family inhabited the cottage he's returned to. He readies himself by stocking the fridge with ten bottles vodka and hanging a chart on the side so he can mark off each bottle day by day. And when he finishes the tenth bottle? No one can really predict. The Sinking of Sozopol refuses to lead you with obvious breadcrumbs.

From Chavo's arrival, he is stalked by the ghostly presence of Gina, the observer and guide it would appear, to the rest of the lost souls about to converge on Sozopol. They are about to intervene in his vodka cleanse and join him on the final leg of his journey. In his dreams we see Chavo swimming along the sea's floor, where he discovers a room submerged with a bed and his brother laying beside it. Grave markers and relics from the past line the sea bottom, below the rustic landscape of a little village leaning on the edge of time.

His memories are filled with Neva (left), played by Snezhina Petrova, his lost love from an unresolved falling out many years ago.

The days progress as the bottles are emptied. The rain begins and the sea begins to swell. It is June, the middle of Summer and cloudy. The village seems uninhabited except for a few straggling vacationers stranded in Limbo. Outstanding locations and set design embellish the surrealism as each significant character develops and accompanies Chavo to the conclusion of his journey.

The cinematography is remarkable to anyone with a painter's eye. The sets were treated very mono-chromatically, with subtle bursts of warm color to keep the viewer's mind's eye on the border between life and death. The Sinking of Sozopol comes with a moody and ambient soundtrack, composed by Nikolay Ivanov. It works well with the sleepy atmosphere of Sozopol; a village besieged by gray skies, rain, and earthy color schemes.

Every character in this story has their own personal baggage to claim. It is not always easy to differentiate Chavo's imaginings from his reality, but this only serves to enforce observations about our own mortality and life experiences. It is because of memories and dreams that we have the freedom to roam within the boundaries of our own self-discovery or self-deprecation.

This movie left me with a few unanswered questions. Even though it was never meant to provide all the answers, this is a very intelligent film. It's more about following the characters and experiencing the human condition in all its short-lived splendor and relative sadness. Was Sozopol some threshold between the living and the dead where old memories were relived but never completely resolved? Regardless of how open ended the conclusion is left, it never deprives the viewer the satisfaction of a climatic resolution shared by old friends and lovers who were driven apart by years of uncertainty.

E. J. Wickes/Cult Critic/CICFF

What do a house in the Old Town of Sozopol left to the ravages of time, a middle-aged man, and ten bottles of vodka have in common? The answer is simple – the past. The past, which leaves the house to fall apart alone and uninhabited, leaving the man to go back to his memories and to attempt to make sense of the chaos within them with the help of ten bottles of vodka. And once he's finished them, he expects "that something has to happen." "The Sinking of Sozopol" is a film with no sugar-coating. It shows one human life with all the unpredictable abysses that open up, as well as our after-the-fact attempts to understand and change them. It shows true human weakness and the strength that we need to resign ourselves to things that are already etched in stone and cannot be erased. This is also the reason that the film is so realistic and, I believe, close to the viewer. "The Sinking of Sozopol" is a mirror of our reality and more exactly – of one generation, with its specific life crises, which have affected every single life in one way or another, to some extent or another. There is art that flees from reality, idealizes it, so as to make existing within it easier, to make it more bearable, and other art, which shows it as it is. It puts a friendly arm around our shoulders and says – "Look, you're not alone, you're not the first, and you won't be the last – we all pass through these storms." Sozopol, as shown to us by DOP Konstantin Zankov, is desolate, empty and gloomy – a world that has been built anew. Sozopol with lots of rain, few colors, little presence – a city where you go to die ("What better place than Sozopol?" Chavo asks). The shots – whether outside (gray, pale and symmetrical) or inside in the old house (with its melancholy paintings, naked walls and rough furnishing) – are exceptionally minimalistic and monochromatic. They show absence, rather than presence. I believe that even if they had been black-and-white, they could not have managed to convey that oppressive, doomed feeling more effectively. Despite this, the ending is beautiful and moving. Something happens not after, but along with the tenth bottle of vodka. The path is discovered within others, and not in solitude. And while Sozopol is being swallowed up by an endless storm and slowly sinking into the sea, Chavo raises himself up out of ruin. He remains above the dark, all-encompassing water. The last bottle of vodka is drunk the fastest. And the rain doesn't stop. But right at that moment, that doesn't matter at all. Hristian Yovchev Under the Bridge Magazine, Sofia, 28.11.2014

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