Canary Season
((BULGARIAN))
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This is the tragic account of a woman's brutalization by forces set loose by the Communist regime, which stresses its power in a twisted kind of masculine bravery. The title comes from the expressed hope of a principal character that "someday we'll get two canaries." Although that wish is never realized, hopes are renewed with the breakup of the totalitarian government.
After Lily's love is taken into the army, she is raped by a scion of Communist officials, becomes pregnant and is forced to marry her attacker. Her mother-in-law finds letters from Lily's love, and uses her power to have Lily sent to a labor camp where she suffers cruelly. The trials she endures finally break her, and she is put in an asylum from which she is eventually rescued.
This awful life is described in flashbacks as Lily tells her misbegotten, failure-prone son, Malina, of the events that have kept her from being a good mother. Malina has been shifted from place to place and has grown up an uncomprehending tough in detention, torn with hatred of Lily.
Lensed entirely on location in Sofia and on the shores of the Black Sea, the film has an immediacy due to director Eugeny Mihaylov's acute sense of drama and the fluid, sensitive camerawork of Eli Yonova.
Performances are outstanding. Both Plamena Getova and Paraskeva Djukelova, who play, respectively, the young and the old Lily, were honored as best actresses by the Bulgarian Film Society for their work in this film. The two women bear an extraordinary likeness of face and character, and give shining, heartbreaking performances. Petar Popyordanov, who plays the dark role of the boy's father, was awarded the best actor prize by the society, and helmer Mihaylov was named best director.
Grim as the film is, it is an important account of a terrible time.
Camera (color), Eli M. Yonova; music, Kiril Dontchev. Reviewed at Denver Film Festival, Oct. 17, 1994. Running time: 133 MIN.
With: Plamena Getova, Paraskeva Djukelova, Petar Popyordanov.
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