User Reviews

Such a high score for a dumb movie, you may say...

For me personally, Bulgarian cinema died and was buried last year with a movie called 'In the Heart of the Machine.' The lack of any creative vanguard, the full-length cliché, the weak acting performance, and the repulsive sound have become the trademark of Bulgarian cinema. For more than twenty years, we have seen just a few more sparks like 'Dyad'.

This movie was a huge surprise for me, as I had seen its early trailers and expected some extra dirt on the coffin of Bulgarian cinema. The main flaw of the movie was visible at first glance - an exploitative script filled with exaggerated drama, typical for our geographic latitude.

I have to admit that the main reason to watch it was that I needed to see how far the dumb dialogue could go, how the director tries to rip off Hollywood mainstream trends again, and how the actors struggle with every line. Don't get me wrong, there are many very talented Bulgarian actors, but the scripts nowadays sound like some Bulgarian language scientist tried to imagine how street people talk.

It turned out I was very amused. I had not even hoped that any new Bulgarian movie might try to break some of these symptoms of impotence and, in the meantime, try to go back to the good practices of the glorious past. I was fascinated with the dialogue and the characters created. Some of them - like the English teacher, the mother of the rich girl, the father of Dida, and the physics coach - were so authentic and truth-bearing that one could incorrectly presume they were real people. New actors are performing at the level of experienced actors like Ivan Barnev and Silvia Lulcheva. For me, some of the characters were so real, as their way of talking and thinking exactly represents people I actually know in real life. This does not happen by coincidence. I think this is an elaborate process that has been recreated by Yana Titiova, and I am looking forward to its usage again!

If the director was brave enough to make the movie solely about the characters without trying to use them to create Shakespearean drama, the movie would be a diamond.

Apart from the solid presence of Margarita Stoykova, it's just another misery story, but without the emotional effect because it's so clumsily and so dishonestly told. For one, we see the protagonist's inner state directly depicted in her scribblings, but what's even worse, any kind of problematic behavior seems to serve some very presentable purpose. Why is that now, huh? If Dida was using her body to buy herself booze instead of English lessons, would that have made her any less pitiable? Authors and audiences who cannot stand a real anti-hero only demonstrate how deeply uncompassionate they are. And I'm sick of how these self-proclaimed saints appropriate all the important topics and effectively take away the opportunity for real discussion. If you want a truthful coming-of-age drama, Kids is the obvious option, but for a more girly take, see the Israeli Six Acts.