Podslon (Shelter), 2010

Podslon (Shelter), 2010
Director: Dragomir Sholev
Cast: Tzvetan Daskalov, Silvia Gerina, Irena Hristoskova




Stage: Liffe, the movie festival. Cankarjev dom


Podslon in short: While they have been changing TV channels, making pickles or discussing politics, the parents of 12-year-old Rado have missed their son's growing up. Now they cannot understand why, after disappearing for two days, he isn't sorry for the nightmare he has caused them and why is he ready to run away from home with the first junkies he has met on the street.


Preps: Seems alternative enough to my taste according to the description. Plus, I don't remember when it was the last time I saw a bulgarian movie.



Reality: This story is based on a biography per se. Which means that the director grew up in an environment like the movie is depicting and must have grown strong feelings in the time he wanted to become like the row model he had back then. The real philosophy of the movie deals with a constant and never too old question - what to do if your teenager suddenly starts to dilude from the path you chose for him?

In this sense, puberty is something all parents experience at some point. Are they prepared for it, is another question, and furthermore, are they prepared if the child starts dealing drugs, runs away, chooses alternative society which empowers him with tools to do some criminal activities, etc. Or if it's just in the shape of listening to a certain band or following some rituals. Do you as a parent get worried, get in the middle of this, do you have the limit in your head (up to where you leave your child wander and experience the world, and when it is that you are going to say stop - it's enough). A lot of dilemmas are revealing in this piece, as you follow the simple plot (child leaving for two days, appearing with some punk friends his parents despise in a moment).

The parallel story about the parents, living their lives pretending as if their child never grew up (seeing him as a young boy he once was) and not acknowledging something dramatic is happening with the mindset of the junior.
The punk couple the young boy brings home represent almost everything the father of the son would never dream of that his kid was about to become like this. He doesn't see it (or put it better - doesn't want to). Therefore we come to funny scenes, like the "lunch", where the observer merely expects that the punk kid will get a slam from the father - the father just staring at him and trying to choak with the fact that this 18 year old boy his own boy admires in such a way, really believes that anarchy is the way to a better perspective, smokes, drinks, looks awful with his haircut, clothing, appeareance,etc. And yet his own kid would love to be just like this. It must be a nightmare to any parents, however, in perticular this couple that never dreamt of having such a problem.

Anarchy puts in perspective everything that is done by work and hard time we are all experiencing. Living on your own, paying and supporting yourself, being independent. To this punk kid, electricity is the benefit of us all, therefore we shouldn't pay for it. School is for dumb people. Learning also. Work also. And yet, this kind of approach leads to living in a garage, on cold, asking for food, stealing from those that live "sheepish - working and being independent".

A lot of personal touch and traumatic moments are embedded in the movie. However, when we come to a some sort of conclusion, the ending isn't where it's supposed to be put. I don't see the ending where the director sees it. In other words, this movie has a shitty ending, which spoils the complete picture and complete mindset that I have made before it ends.


My personal rate: 6,0 (from different perspectives, very interesting.)


Podslon on IMDB