Fate as a Rat

Colour, 35mm
Bulgaria, Macedonia, 2001, 75 min
Section: East of the West

Synopsis

The film is set in a sleepy, isolated small town by the sea where the nearby quarry provides the inhabitants’ only chance of work. A group of forty-five-year-olds, however, manage to do fairly well increasing their family budgets by stealing stone and dynamite. These men are primitive, greedy and cunning with no moral inhibitions. They exacerbate their hollowness by their churlish treatment of their own and others’ women. Their blunt existence is brightened by petty squabbles and intrigues which they then consummate with raucous, companionable drinking bouts. When they hear that the quarry is to close down and that, above the cove where they dynamite fish, a summer resort is to be built instead, they take this as a violation of their inalienable rights and decide for the appropriate action. They begin by blowing up a half-built pier. Another explosion soon follows.

About the director

Ivan Pavlov (b. 1947) studied film direction at VITIZ in Sofia (1978); he then worked at Boyana Film Studios. Apart from numerous documentaries, he has also made the following features: Mass Miracle (Masovo chudo, 1981), Black & White (Cherno-byalo, 1983), Walking with an Angel (Razhodki s angela, 1990), the TV film Theatre, My Love (Teatar, lyubov moya, 1994), From Scratch (Vsichko ot nula, 1996), Fate as a Rat (Sadbata kato plach, 2001).