Another View - review - VIKTORIA by Maya Vitkova

There are plenty of reasons to be excited about Viktoria, shown in the Another View section of the 49^th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival.

This film announces the arrival on the international film scene of a great and unique visionary filmmaker Maya Viktova, whose confidence and ambition leads her to use her own life story as a starting point for her stunning feature debut.

This is a story that spins out of three decades and begins in the late seventies, and this provides the interesting historical backdrop of the years of communist ruling and the subsequent nation’s state of confusion. But most importantly, it is the story of an unwanted child and her estranged mother. Born without a bellybutton, a clear symbol of her mother's instant rejection, Viktoria is nevertheless spoilt by the nation as she becomes a symbol of Communist Bulgaria.

Viktoria unravels at an intense and meditative pace in an invigorating mixture of poetic realism and quasi-documentarian representation. It is split into three parts. The first deals with the events surrounding the childbirth, the second is the coming of age piece portraying the titular character’s childbhood and the third is Viktoria’s young adulthood.

In the third part in particular, this mixture of more poetic imagery reaches its most metaphorical state and is an idyllic epilogue for the narrative that preceded it. Nevertheless, the film retains the quality of realism that makes it seem so human and makes the feelings it carries so genuine.

This is achieved through natural lighting and a carefully impulsive photography that intensifies the psychology of the film by glorifying it visually. Equally as praise worthy are the performances of the actors, who understand fully the pacing and nature of the film, and are able to communicate so much and very often my saying so little. The blank stare of actress Irmena Chichikova as Boryana, Viktoria’s mother, is enchantingly enigmatic.

All the while, the depth of Viktoria’s reflections on the theme of motherhood, the real driving force of the film, clearly come from a personal closeness the filmmaker has with it. It is also for that reason, to honour them and to honour her vision, that she decided to ditch her producers and bought out the rights to her own story that had ended up in their hands to bring the film to life in the way she wanted. It’s difficult not to point out that the difficulties Viktoria had to overcome to exist in the way it does kind of resemble the resilience of the titular character in her survival instinct and her birth – despite her mother’s attempts in preventing that happening.

The result could not be praised enough. Admittedly, some people might be frustrated by the slow start before realising that it is not Vitkova’s intention to impose its narrative structure on the viewer but rather always have them be an interactive part of it by including their own thoughts and feelings in their perception of what is shown on screen. It’s understood, however, that these critiques may be born out of the impatience that is a common state of our time. The truth is that rarely do we see a first feature of this calibre and with such an original visual and narrative style that is so impressively shaped and matured.