Iron Curtain Classics

VIKTORIA (2016) (A-minus) - If you have the stamina, this two-and-a-half-hour droning drama about the fall of communism in Bulgaria -- centered on a "miracle" baby born without a belly button -- is one of the most gorgeous films you'll see. The debut from Maya Vitkova features a parade of stunning visuals and a gut-wrenching performance by Irmena Chichikova as the miserable of the spoiled child she never wanted in the first place.

Chichikova is Boryana, a brooding, moping woman who longs to escape the communist-bloc nation at the start of the film in 1979 and never gets over her disappointment of being trapped in Bulgaria. After a home-remedy abortion technique fails, she gives birth in 1980 to Viktoria, who is hailed by the government as a glorious symbol of the revolution because of her missing navel. Born at the same time is a club-footed boy whose life is forever twinned with Viktoria's, he being the red-headed stepchild in the eyes of the politburo. (The families are awarded apartments in a drab housing complex, and Viktoria's parents also get a little red clunker of a car.) Viktoria's bratty, entitled behavior will include constant bullying of the boy.

Fast-forward to 1989, and we meet Viktoria (Daria Vitkova), a snotty little princess who has a bat-phone linked directly to the party leader and who is chauffeured to school every day. Boryana is still miserable, the scorn in her eyes sharper and the bags under her eyes deeper. In a gorgeous sequence between the estranged mother and daughter, as the two part ways on a path, Viktoria is aged to her mid-teens (and played by Kalina Vitkova), now a more rounded character struggling with her loss of status after the fall of communism -- and developing some of the wanderlust that her mom has.

Boryana herself felt abandoned by her own mother, and she is hectored by a live-in mother-in-law. She simply has no use for any sort of family structure. One recurring theme involves Boryana's hatred of milk, likely not unrelated to her inability to nurse Viktoria. The story can be static and frustrating, but there's no denying the beauty and heartbreak painted onto every frame of the picture.

BONUS TRACK
The trailer hints at some of the mesmerizing camerawork by Vitkova and her cinematographer, Krum Rodriguez: