Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Sneakers (2012)

Sneakers • Кецове (2011)
Sneakers • Кецове (2011)
Genre: Adventure, Drama
Director: Ivan Vladimirov, Valeri Yordanov
Starring: Ivo Arakov, Phillip Avramov, Ivan Barnev, Vasil Draganov, Ina Nikolova, Valeri Yordanov
Language: Bulgarian, Turkish, English
Duration: 111 min.
Rating: 6.0
Summary:
Six young people escape their dreary lives in the city for an adventure filled summer on the beach.
Sneakers is a film directed by Ivan Vladimirov and Valeri Yordanov, from a screenplay written by Yordanov. It premiered in competition at the 2011 Moscow Film Festival where it received a Special Mention from the Jury. It is Bulgaria's official submission to the 2013 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film.

It's the story of six twenty-somethings from Sofia, who all for different reasons have miserable lives in the city. Independently, they decide to head to the Black Sea, where they meet and spend an idyllic, adventure filled summer on an unnamed beach.

It starts out with a series of far fetched but still intriguing segments that introduce and set up each of the characters quite well, but quickly turns into an aimless and unoriginal story largely cribbed from Danny Boyle's The Beach (2000). There are a few funny moments here and there, a couple of cool musical scenes, it's technically sound, and the actors all appear to be enjoying their time in the picturesque location, but it fails to offer or maintain much dramatic interest overall.

It's great to see more films coming out of Bulgaria, but sadly they chose a lackluster contender that has absolutely no chance of making it to the shortlist.
Bonjour Tristesse


Sneakers • Кецове (2011)

Sneakers • Кецове (2011)

Sneakers • Кецове (2011)

Sneakers • Кецове (2011)

Sneakers • Кецове (2011)

Sneakers • Кецове (2011)

Sneakers • Кецове (2011)

Sneakers • Кецове (2011)

8 comments:

Michaël Parent said...

I'll pass on this one. Nice and honest presentation of the movie.

d_4 said...

Well that sucks.

The Angry Lurker said...

A pity though.....

Lisa Thatcher said...

Ha ha ha ha - I like the 2 comment below.

Iffsy said...

I'm a Bulgarian and I often read your blog, because I can see we have common taste of films. But I absolutely agree that this one is not an example of good one. It's pity that in the last 20 years our directors are making mostly soulless films with negligible signs of personal creativity. However, there are some examples of good works - 'Shelter' (Подслон) or 'Eastern plays'(Източни пиеси). It will be nice if you can watch them because I'm very interested about your opinion.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Thank you Iffsy, and welcome! It's always great to hear from a new reader. I have seen Eastern Plays and I would say it is the best Bulgarian film I've seen so far. It's a shame Kamen Kalev's second film was such a mess. I have not heard of Shelter, but I will look it up, and if you can think of any other recommendations please feel free to share them.

Iffsy said...

I agree the second film of Kalev films was too messy even if the first part was so promising. I intend to recommend 'Ave' but as I can see, you'd already watched it. Unfortunately the contemporary Bulgarian cinema can't boast of cinematic masterpieces. Shelter isn't a popular one, but I think it's really good, maybe because the screenplay is written by Razvan Radulescu. :)

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Yeah, Ave was pretty good. Nothing spectacular, but still a lovely little film. It should have been the one sent to the Oscars. Now I really must track down Shelter, I had no idea Radulescu wrote it. Thanks for the tip. I have a strong feeling I will enjoy this one.

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