The Foreigner

The movie isn't bad but also is nothing special considering that it is a directorial debut. It is true that the rating is too high I gave him 5 but I must admit that there were pretty funny moments. It is a light and pleasant story, with very nice music and also with beautiful actors. Interesting fact about the film is that it is an extended version of the short film with which the director graduated from the university. The film has no deep meaning and it's just a story about the clash of people who have nothing in common. It's good for wasting time and if you are looking for something that doesn't make you think about serious things. The feeling that one feels after watching a film depends on expectations before watching it so my advice is have low expectations and the movie will surprise you.

Unfortunately, I will strongly disagree with the current review of this film.

I am disappointed from this movie's script where dialectic-ism is used in a very flat, inappropriate and completely irritating way. The characters are underdeveloped, insufficient and much more work and complexity is needed to ignite someone's feelings. Actors play is on a very low level and inappropriately selected for their images. Some of the good features of the movie are the selected music and camera work. Otherwise, I had a pretty bad time trying to stay focused and watch the film.

I'm not really into French movies and watch them only for particular cast members, and since THE FOREIGNER starred one of my favourites but in a supporting role, I gave it a try... with disastrous results. If you wanna know why, read my following text.

Gerard is a French man who came in Bulgary for business reasons and once there he falls for a feisty Bulgarian village girl named Sanya. Following his heart Gerard starts to look for the village where Sanya lives despite he doesn't know the language and the habits of the people living there. And of course, Gerard will end up in various embarassing situations that thankfully I forgot because they were too cringeworthy.

What ruined the movie for me is that the lead looked like a big doofus that ended in trouble after trouble because of that village girl, and after a while you simply can't care for him anymore. And the more time passed, the film became duller and dumber. Also, while I am a fan of Christopher Lambert, not only he was for some minutes for saying his occasional line, but he looked like he didn't wanted to be in this movie in the first place... who can blame him? I can only assume they picked him because since the cast is made of unknown names his name alone could have made it marketable, but wrong! Not only his talent was wasted but his appearence wasn't worth of saving this mess.

Overall a misguided comedy that must have been written in a room full of hamsters... very, very dumb hamsters. By the way, not only this has a score of 6,7 but most reviews that give it 1s and others that give it 9s and 10s. While the 1s are probably a bit too low the 9s and 10s would imply that this is a perfect movie, which clearly isn't. Perhaps they were written by folks involved with the movie, who knows and who cares?

There are a lot of things which really made strong impact, such as the shaky camera, the inadequate editing and the sound effects. The plot didn't make any sense and the acting is terrible most of the time. I took in mind that the movie is directed by Niki Iliev, who graduated in film directing and the set is financed by private companies, which probably limited the budget, but a more careful consideration of some scenes would have been useful.

The plot brought up questions such as how communication is so poor among family members, business partners and how come the people from the two villages are so unaware of what is happening around them. And at the same time girls have perfect manicure and make up all the time, some of them are even following the fashion trends. Providing that the natives in the movie live a rural life, they dress classy for their standard of living. GPS navigation doesn't exist.

The action scenes in the movie can be characterized as a parody and a parallel with action scenes from Bollywood can be made. The director, as an actor, showed great kicks and punches but they were miles away from the desired targets spots.

In terms of after effects, low- quality SFX were used and more detailed work on audio should have been great. The ambient sounds and the non- diegetic music is rubbish. Heightened FX are partly used, rather inadequate songs are chosen to do that instead. Some songs were not referenced like the other 3 songs circulating in the set. Perhaps of copyrights? A good idea should have been to collect "buzz tracks" on location, rather using ready- made ones. There is great software which can compensate for shaky camera footage.

As a summary it would be a great production if it was made by final year students. Good camera motion. Ridiculous plot.

I must say that Niki Iliev's movie 'The Foreigner' was a pleasant surprise. Initially, my expectations were quite low as I haven't seen many decent Bulgarian movies recently (at least, not filmed over the last decade). However, I liked its style, tone, the balance between playful lightness and 'depth'. The music was in sync with the scenery and the characters; nice yet unobtrusive background to what was unfolding on the screen. The characters were well presented with a great sense of humour and some uniquely 'typical' (albeit a bit oversimplified) features of the Balkan mentality. The cinematography was absolutely gorgeous! It reminded me of a peculiar but strangely fascinating mixture between Emir Kusturica's masterpieces (e.g. 'Black cat, white cat') and some of Pedro Almodóvar's earlier movies - e.g. 'Kika', 'Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown' ('Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios'), but with a modern feel. I loved the landscape, the vibrant colours and especially the scenes filmed in the Bulgarian countryside, seen through the eyes of a Frenchman ('The Foreigner') who visits Bulgaria and falls in love at first sight (or imagines himself to be in love!) with a local girl. Actually, the actor playing the foreigner is Lubomir Kovatchev, a very talented Bulgarian actor who speaks French fluently. While watching the movie, I felt almost nostalgic, recalling my childhood in Bulgaria. To me, this movie seems like a lovely portrayal of the 'meeting' between two worlds - Eastern and Western Europe, modern and traditional values, the City and the Village, past and present. The emphasis is not so much on the love story than on the collision between these two worlds. We all as human beings sometimes struggle to understand not only each other's differences based on our origin, not only each other's language, but each other's perspective. This led to many comic and at times, tragic situations. However, the beauty of this movie was also in capturing 'moments of meeting' between people of diverse background which transcended language and verbal communication. To quote Exupéry, 'It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye'. The only criticism I have is that some of the characters (for example, Valentin Goshev's character Zlatan) were a bit one-dimensional and too much like the famous literary archetype of the Bulgarian anti-hero Bay Ganyo, created in the late 19th century as an epitome of arrogance and ignorance. I think, however, that by the end of the story this character's personality certainly evolved as well as the others'. I liked how some stereotypes were broken, for example that all Bulgarian people living in villages are 'dumb' and savage. On the contrary, gentleness and sensitivity were evoked even in the hearts of the seemingly rough fathers and brothers of the two rival families. The constant battles between the two brothers and the gossiping of (the supporting character) Magdalena's sisters were a pleasure to behold. The ending was priceless! Overall, I enjoyed this movie very much. Well done to Niki Iliev and the crew!