The fall of communism in Bulgaria was not precisely a complete secession: with the country’s Communist Party giving up its political monopoly in 1989 to make way for parliamentary democracy, the party was able to win the country’s first free elections the following year. The panic of unfamiliar freedoms escalates to chaotic effect in “Triumph,” a completely unique political satire directed by Bulgarian duo Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov, in which old-school power structures and preposterous new-age thinking grind each other into chaos. . Dead end in vain. The original and bizarre if intermittently funny film is based largely on the deadpan comedic stylings of Oscar-nominated star (and producer) Maria Bakalova, who returns to her home country for the first time since 2021’s “Women Do Cry.”
Inspired by real events — even if little about its frenetic, heightened tone would suggest so — “Triumph” is the concluding entry in Gruzeva and Valchanov’s self-proclaimed “newspaper clippings trilogy,” in which each film is expanded upon from some sensational tabloid articles in the Bulgarian media. date. (Previous entries were 2014’s “The Lesson” and 2016’s “Glory” — the latter of which was the country’s official Oscar submission, as is this year’s “Triumph.”) Contact can feel as if it was pulled from the pages of the National Enquirer or its closest Balkan equivalent, with an uncanny sense of storytelling that sets the film apart from its more muted predecessors.
The film opens with a scene of stuttering absurdity, as an army unit digs a large hole in a khaki-coloured countryside in western Bulgaria, only to receive immediate instructions to fill the hole and others nearby. It is 1990, the nation is going through a transition, and it is fair to say that national resources are not being used wisely. Under the command of General Zlatev (Ivan Savov) and Colonel Platnikov (Julian Vergov), the serving soldiers undertake a top-secret operation to uncover a mysterious artifact allegedly buried there by aliens. Also overseeing the proceedings is the curly-haired Nyagulova (Margita Gosheva), Zlatev’s personal psychic: amid gossipy chatter about “accessing the Seventh District” and “controlling the risks of deactivation,” she more pointedly insists on finding the artifact and channeling the alien intelligence . It will be the making of a new Bulgaria.
The supposed secret weapon in this wild goose chase is Slava (Bakalova), Platnikov’s naive and emotionally fragile young daughter, who Niagovola believes has extrasensory powers. Or claims to believe, anyway. Who’s pulling the wool over his eyes is hard to say as the project grows more muddled and drawn out — and as Slava’s loose lips (and unfettered desire for a special young man) elude any modicum of integrity she had to begin with. Bakalova is perhaps the only innocent in all of this, a representative of a people plagued by confused political ideologies, and she brings a fluid, physical game of giddiness to the film that works in contrast to the laconic, barking farce embodied by her elders — her face a clear pool of astonishment and wonder, eventually hardening To distrust.
Taking more facts than one might think possible from a sordid chapter of history for the Bulgarian Ministry of Defence—the two-year psychologically directed excavation of the Tsarichina Hole, which was eventually abandoned due to tightening finances—Gruzeva and Valchanov’s text, co-written with Decho Taralezhkov, makes A froth of silliness early on, the comic momentum runs out a bit, before things take a darker, more nihilistic turn. Even at 97 minutes, “Triumph” feels a bit stretched, as its second half repeats the satirical jabs that already hit the mark effectively.
However, as an aerial exercise, it is increasingly claustrophobic, as Crom Rodriguez’s lens gradually sinks into the darkness of the craters, where all light falls into shades of sepia and dark grey. Yorgos Lanthimos’ regular editor, Yorgos Mavropsaridis, keeps the pace tense and frenetic, concerned less with unraveling the narrative than with undermining it as he goes. The audience will likely feel, appropriately, drawn into this meaningless mission, and its operators will ultimately feel as well.