Zift (2008)

So much average

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The opening of the film is hilarious. A man finds out his wife is cheating on him and he uses the septic truck he operates, loaded with three tons of waste, to get even. I don't know what it has to do with the story, but it was funny. There were a lot of funny stories throughout the film.The film moves from there to a prison where Moth (Zahary Baharov) is about to be released after serving time for a crime he did not commit. He enters a world he doesn't know as the Communists are now in power.The film is brilliant in a sharp black and white, which is perfect as it is neo-noir. At the same time, it is a Socialist Art (Sots Art) film, which parodies the Soviet Realism with reverential depictions of workers, peasants living happily in their communes. The shower scene in the prison was particularly funny.It was confusing when he is released from prison and ends up in another one immediately, but in flashbacks we see Moth with his wife Ada (Tanya Ilieva) and partner-in-crime Slug (Vladimir Penev), who is now an official in the new prison, and is looking for a diamond they stole years earlier.He escapes, but not before he is poisoned. He manages to find Ada before he is to die. Things get a little surreal, and weird from here, but they go after the diamond. What happens next was satisfying and sad.There were other great performances: Mihail Mutafov as Van Wurst-the Eye and Djoko Rosic as the priest.

In fact, a sociological research can be done about Bulgaria along those pages here. Some people say "it is the worst movie ever" and give it 1 star, some say it is "the best Bulgarian movie" and give it 8-10 stars. Well, the truth is somewhere in between. (I hate that "this movie is horrible" people say "too much profanity"... what? This movie is FAR LESS profane than ANY meeting in Bulgaria, where men are present...)-The acting... is bad. Or, there is not any. Only Moth is kinda okay, the rest is in the mediocre-horrible range (Ada being the bottom).-Characters... are horrible. Firstly, NOBODY swears... Undertakers, drunkards, military people, prisoners... WHAT? I don't know if non-balkan guys know how is it here, but HELL, even most intelligent of our guys swear like hell... when you listen to angry security guard for example, you can laugh your ass from the swears you will hear... In this movie- "f!ck, sh!t". Hell, Americans swear that way, bulgarians... DON'T. Besides, all characters speak in PERFECT Bulgarian, which makes them totally frigid and unrealistic (imagine a movie about a ghetto, where all black guys talk like Barrack Obama). -The storyline- is utterly messed at the end. The motives of some major characters remain unclear when the lights are up. -The Balkan humor- is missing and that is just insane. All we have to offer IS THAT, not make some high-budget movie rip-offs- because they won't work. -The dialogue- is most of the time bad. So is the narrator text- yeah, it is from a book... SO WHAT? There are bad books too- and this one is one of them. -The scene when they run at the women public bath and there are numerous naked women- is POINTLESS. I don't hold anything against nudity, but I HATE pointless nudity. Yeah, with so much "bads", someone will ask where are the "goods". Well, there are some. The movie is nicely shot, from my point of view- this is the big +. There were some nice moments too. But that's about it. Yes, the dialogue, story, acting weren't insanely bad, they weren't Epic/Disaster movie bad, they just weren't any good. I would give that movie 3 or 4 for the effort- it is not so bad to deserve 1, but it ain't deserving 8-10 too... not by a long shot.

TBH I didn't expect much from this title. The comments I heard were SO overrated that I began to suspect they were all based on what u call regional patriotism. It saddens me to c i was right.Story & Plot 1/10 I mean, common... WTF? What did u tell us? Women are hell itself? People in Bulgaria all smell like sh*t and sweat or a mix of both? The only way to have fun is to get drunk and/or make brutal sex, once again covered in sh*t and sweat? I haven't counted how many times the word 'sh*t' is used but its kinda the most used word in the movie.Characters 1/10 Erm... Come again? The Moth? The Mantis? Oh really! No development whatsoever during the movie, nothing... I mean u cant write about something that is pretty much non existing. OST 3/10 There was only 1 good thing in Zift - The opening song called Smuglyanka Moldavanka performed by the Red Army Choir.Enjoyment 0/10 No commentI have just 1 wish: Please, pretty please, stop making use of the communist regime as an excuse for making crap movies. Its gone. We all can c it. Cant u? Time to talk about something else.

This movie has given back to me the hope that Bulgarian cinema is going upward! Tha last few bg titles that i've seen all seemed to have a problem - they were weird (in terms of plot, acting, locations, camera angles). And just because a movie is tragic, strange, original and twisted doesn't mean it's good. Yes, maybe it can move you. Maybe. Maybe one can admit that the movie is totally genuine. But that still doesn't mean it's a masterpiece. Something is just missing for the movie to be enjoyable and moving while you're in the theater and mind blowing when you get out and think it over. The missing parts probably are the perfect storyline of Zift, the look of Zift, the action of Zift, the soundtrack of Zift, the grotesque humor of Zift! That's what makes the film of Yavor Gardev so successful - perfection itself!