Born with the Century

There are many different forms of historiography. In this film, Bulgarian director Eldora Traykova introduces a large number of his 100-year-old compatriots. Their personal stories succeed each other in a lucid, chronological way, indirectly unveiling the history of the country. In their wrinkled hands and faces, the dry facts of the turbulent twentieth century are made vital. Some events are remembered with a smile: a marriage, a day out in the big city, a favourite song. But everybody in his or her own way is marked by the violent crises of the past hundred years. Traykova makes subtle use of historical archive footage and old photographs of the interviewees. On most of these, they look solemnly into the camera, seriously looking to the future, together with husbands, wives and relatives who have died or fallen.Particularly in the case of war, personal memories lend colour to well-known stories. A countrywoman saw ‘carts without horses’ and ‘iron birds’ appear. ‘This is life!’, the farmer’s son thought when sleeping in a real bed for the first time as a soldier. A woman witnessed Hitler’s rise in Berlin. One war succeeded the other, until the Communists rose to power. An elderly woman still cherishes her Communist medal, though she disapproves of the fact that religion was prohibited at the time. Today, an old man prays before drinking a glass of coke. But a farmer’s wife soberly concludes: ‘Where is God? I haven’t seen him in a hundred years.’