Baba Vanga Directed by Aleksandra Niemczyk
Baba Vanga
Directed by Aleksandra Niemczyk
Starring: Jasmina Basic, Bojan Chabichou, Amela Delic, Zlaja Dzanovic, Ravijojla Jovancic, Edib Lagumdzija, Sabina Mrgan, Nastazja Niedziela, Virginie Roche, Elma Selman, Sasa Skoko, Jovana Skrijelj, Tatjana Sojic, Vedad Trbonja
Year: 2016
Country: Bosnia, Poland
Author Review: Roberto Matteucci
Click Here for Italian Version
"I will tell you only if you promise you will not seek revenge."
Rupite is a mountainous, peasant village in Bulgaria, where lived simple people.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, it was an underdeveloped zone, with widespread poverty. At that time, in Rupite, lived Vangelija Pandeva Dimitrova called Baba Vanga, a lively girl with no mother. At twelve, during a storm, she disappeared. She was found after a few days with eyes full of sand. The eyesight problem, surely ill-treated, forced the teenager to blindness. Subsequently, she started to read thought and foretell the future.
She began to be famous as prescient. Among the visitors there was also the King of Bulgaria Boris III. We ignore whatfuture she foretold him, and if the King also understood the nefarious choices for both Bulgaria and him. On August 9, 1943, the Boris III visited Hitler, a tempestuous meeting for the reticence of the sovereign, and strangely, or perhaps noteven, some days after, on August 28, 1943, he passed away.
Over the years, Baba Vanga was known more and more, so much to have been called the Nostradamus of the Balkans. A conquered fame when she was in life. In 1996, she died. Some years before, the community had built, near her house, the church dedicated to Saint Petka, protectress of the eyes and the blind. (1)
Notoriety increased in recently, the main international newspapers wrote many articles about her. The reason is clear, many of his prophecies have come true: the escalation of global temperatures, in 2004 the tsunami in Asia, the Kursk submarine tragedy, the September 11 attack on the twin towers, the Brexit and the not easy divination that the forty-fourthPresident of the United States would have been black. Indeed, they are modern and difficult predictions. Unlike the mostillustrious prescient Nostradamus, her foretelling is current and sufficiently clear. Obviously, there is also some small misunderstanding. Barack Obama was the forty-fourth President of the United States and undoubtedly, he was the first African American. But at the same time, she had prophesied that he would have been the last American president. But Donald Trump was able to defeat the polls and even the Nostradamus of the Balkans.
Baba Vanga's life is unknown, information is scarce and unconfirmed. She surely had thousands of private talks, thus rising his celebrity, but there is nothing documented.
The personality of Baba Vanga is a fascinating subject for the artists, because, on the foundations of insufficient news, they can build an imaginary and truthful character, enriching the legend of Baba Vanga.
Aleksandra Niemczyk is a young student filmmaker, she studied with the teacher Béla Tarr in Sarajevo, with greatelegance narrates the eccentric sibyl in the film Baba Vanga presented at the 53rd Pesaro Film Festival.
The author describes the character of a young Baba Vanga in a feminine world, showing in images the humanity of a girl used to the black of her blind eyes:
"... I have always been interested in female stories, also those concerning the sentimental and sexual sphere of women ..."(2)
...
"... a sort of Balkan prophetess ... to show the character in a different way respect what was represented by the media ... a portrait of Baba Vanga before he had these powers ... and seeing her as a young woman..." (3)
The story begins in 1945, close-up, a woman looking out the window and is listening to a report about the launch of the atomic bomb. She cries, a static shot blocks the look.
In a forest a wooden box slides slowly, a woman is pushing it. She takes too much time to transport it, exalting the slowness of actions and existence.
Each scene has its own life, with continuity of colour and method.
The director has always framed Baba Vanga between two elements, like walls or trees, with her at the centre.
Inside the house, she builds something, but she still does not speak, for a seer who has uttered so many prophecies appearas a contradiction, or it is the meaning of life. Silence is indeed meditative, meticulous, mystical. With the same calmnessand the same asceticism, she does something at home: arrange the dishes or scratch some photos.
The film proceeds with the identical language: many close-ups, her long face, thin, big nose. She has no one to talk to, and she doesn't meet with anyone, yet she does not seem to be alone, she has an inner peace, which however does notcorrespond to the physical one.
Notes from a piano, a red curtain, the strong wind hit the house.
Time passes. Now she is blindfolded, she is blind, she declaims the prophecies, and she is struck by spiritual crisis.
Outside, there are persons, she listens through a glass door: "what will I tell them?"
She is rocked from one wall to another, grainy electronic images, the light is back, the movements are even slower, shefolds the clothes exasperatingly calm.
This is Baba Vanga by Aleksandra Niemczyk. A real woman, a person with physical sufferings, who lived in a remote place. It is difficult for a young female to be blind and face a tough existence. The acts are slow, she defends herself by using slowness as a protection to isolate herself in her world. She does not see and rarely speaks; this gives dignity when she utters words because perceived as special and rare.
The author's style has the charm of being elegant and refined. There are two main characteristics. She says in the presentation of the movie:
"... slow cinema, I come from the world of the visual arts, more meditative, poetic cinema, the opposite of an action movie, a sort of visual story rather than a series of information one after the other, that brings you in this kind of world, few dreams that are similar to what we experience when we sleep. I invite you to come with me to my slow world and be part of it." (4)
Slow cinema. The film is slow, but slowness is not a defect, it is a way of life. Therefore, the acting is quiet, phlegmatic, the daily movement is serene, the opposite of speed and of the high-sounding prophecies spread in the world.
The second characteristic is evident. The director comes from the visual arts and, in fact, in the film, every frame isexperienced lives as a painting, like a representation of still life, like a photographic shot, spot in a sophisticated and careful location. This is why the woman is confined between two objects.
In the end, the words held up burst into the many prophecies about the future. Now, she is quiet at home, the revelationsare recited by a voice over, a thunder, in:
“... 2111 men will be robots ... 2288 we will travel over time ...”
Many divination and the last is: “in 5079, the universe will end”.
In 5079 the world will end. But the end of the world doesn't scare people anymore. Certainty, the universe will end, wejust have to be cautious about the date.
Baba Vanga pronounced many terrify future events, present and political prophecies: like the invasion of Europe of Muslim armies, they will found an Islamic caliphate with the capital in Rome. The Americans will save Europe againbombarding Rome with climate bombs.
The photos with the scratches on the faces are the last sequence. The faces are erased, perhaps blind has more sensibility in living and knowing people. Before dying, she claimed that her gift would be passed to another ten-year-old girl, living in France and always blind.