The Best Bulgarian Film Comedy
by Georgi Stankov, February 16, 2013
Herewith I am responding to Daniel’s wish:
“I liked this movie “La Belle Verte” a lot, and was just wondering if you know any other movies which are very good? This might help to enjoy the last moments. Daniël “
While waiting for your ascension, a little bit laughing will do a lot of good to all of you. I am presenting you below the best Bulgarian comedy I have ever seen, and I know most of them.
Director: Dimitar Mitovski
I am happy to have found a free copy of this film on the Internet with English subtitles. Half of the film is though spoken in English, so that you will not miss the points, while enjoying the comic plot.
Now let me give you some background information on the president couple, about which the film is making so much fun. Both of them, Peter Stoyanov and his wife were my school mates and come from my native town Plovdiv. “Pesho“, as we called him, visited the same ground school as I did and his wife was in a class one year below mine in the English language gymnasium in the same town. She was a very arrogant girl and I remember how one of my best friends, who had fallen in love with, her, suffered under her scornful comments.
Peter Stoyanov worked later in the lawyer’s office of one of my best friends in Plovdiv during the communist regime. In 1989, shortly after the fall of the Iron curtain, I came to Bulgaria as the first politically active emigre abroad and was one of the founders of the UDF (Union of Democratic Forces) in Sofia – the first opposition party to the still reigning communist regime at that time.
Much later Stoyanov entered this opposition party, which my deceased father co-founded in Plovdiv in 1990. After the first free elections in 1991 my father was elected for many years as a council adviser and dean (honourable chairman) of the council of the second biggest town in Bulgaria (350 000 inhabitants). Plovdiv is since then the stronghold of the democratic opposition in Bulgaria.
Plovdiv was a flourishing city for more than 6000 years and thus one of the oldest places on the Old Continent. The present name is the Bulgarian translation of the original name Philippopolis, named after Philip, the father of Alexander the Great. It was for many centuries the capital of the huge and very rich Roman province Thrace, the corn chamber of the Roman empire and a crossroad of three major Roman pathways.
Peter Stoyanov was elected in 1996 as the first democratic president of Bulgaria after the fall of the communist dictatorship and his term lasted from 1997 till 2002. I met with him once during his presidential term in Sofia at his office, which is shown at the beginning of the film. His wife was famous for her ambitions as the “first lady” of Bulgaria and sought to demonstrate this fact on numerous occasions in Bulgaria and abroad. She always tried to outshine her husband, who still preserved his natural Plovdivian humour.
The director of the movie Dimitar Mitovski comes also from Plovdiv and is much younger than myself. I do not know him personally, but he is obviously well acquainted with the characters of the president and his wife and has depicted them in an ingenious manner. Altogether, this is the best political comedy I have seen for a very long time and only comparable to those of Billy Wilder (e.g. One, two, three). The persiflage of the British queen and her royal ducks is hilarious and heralds what will happen very soon with this royal Orion institution. Hence the plot of the film is very timely and very much in accordance with “La Belle Verte“.
Enjoy this film comedy, while waiting more or less impatiently for your ascension.
