10/10
Well...
20 August 2007
Well... It's so easy to say that a movie is pathetic, or laughable or something like that! But before doing so with this particular movie, we must have in mind the following things: the filming started in 1989, as a risky private enterprise run by the team Getsov - Belovski. They have done a significant documentary research, with the help of the writers Petar Cholov and Petar Lazarov. Most of the filming was done in my hometown Bourgas, on the Black Sea coast. For the purpose, the creators of the film used an abandoned peer in the Bourgas port. They also succeeded in getting some funding from an American company and shot several scenes in the U.S. The cast was formed mostly by enthusiasts, who, and I must admit it, have negligible acting ability. From the beginning it was a daring idea, which was very difficult to realize - at the end of 1989 Bulgaria was already going through the political changes, which virtually destroyed the Bulgarian cinema as a whole. The film was left unfinished and it took some 8 years before it could be seen in the cinemas across Bulgaria. Yes, the film has its setbacks! But it is the first and the only movie, which deals, and I must say correctly, with the life of Dan Kolov, probably the most famous and legendary Bulgarian wrestler, who never accepted American citizenship and was always announced as a Bulgarian wrestler. There is a real event, which did not find place in the movie, but which could serve as the best depiction of Dan Kolov - when he arrived in Paris, where he was about to wrestle for the European Championship, a French customs officer asked for his papers and received an old and almost disintegrated I.D. card. It was Dan Kolov's Bulgarian I.D., which he kept for 20 years since his departure from the motherland, and which accompanied him in all his international tours! The customs officer later said that it was the first time in his long career that he saw such a thing! And here we can find the greatest value of the movie - it keeps the memory of the great Dan Kolov alive!!! And that is the reason that makes people, who are not drunk, and not incredibly stupid, to rate it with 9 or 10!!!
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