For the past twelve years director Tonislav Hristov has been returning to the small Bulgarian village of Dervent, on the Turkish border, filming the ever-dwindling community now reduced to some thirty-five inhabitants from an earlier population of just over a thousand. It was the setting for his acclaimed documentary The Good Postman and is also a key location in his latest, The Last Seagull, though here Hristov employs the locale as one element in the fluctuating state of Bulgarian society as it faces rural flight, COVID and the war in Ukraine. “Seagulls” as used here are beachside gigolos who spend the tourist season picking up foreign women, and Ivan Halachev, the titular “last” of them, is the film’s protagonist, an aging, frequently drunk charmer realizing his lifestyle isn’t sustainable for much longer. Hristov’s years of familiarity with his subject and his unfailingly well-curated approach to documentary shooting, with the kind of crew and set-up usually used for fiction films, results in an impressionistic portrait of greying ideals and shifting life goals in an ever-changing world. Following its premiere in Thessaloniki, The Last Seagull flies to CPH:DOX.
For forty years Ivan has supported himself through the generosity of foreign women, usually East European and Scandinavian, willing to pay for romance during their summer holidays at Sunny Beach, just north of Burgas. He’s maintained a lean physique and long hair, and with his sunglasses on he can still give the illusion of suave studliness for aging ladies with modest wallets and adjusted expectations who are willing to overlook the bad teeth. But he’s beginning to think more about the future, partly prompted by news from his estranged son’s wife in Kyiv that he’s just become a grandfather. To celebrate, Ivan returns to Dervent to throw a party, though the increasingly abandoned village is no longer a place he enjoys revisiting, despite the presence of friends genuinely concerned for his well-being.
Then the pandemic hits, and the market falls out for Seagulls like Ivan and younger, buffer Filip, who recognizes their lifestyle is no longer maintainable. With no tourism Ivan is forced to do odd jobs like cleaning windows, yet those who engage in menial tasks may earn a few coins but no respect. Once lockdown lifts and visitors flock back to the beach, Ivan resumes picking up women, offering companionship in his broken Russian, though if he’s sweet talking these ladies we never hear more than generic lines. The women themselves, mostly Ukrainian and Russian, are usually quick to move on, especially when they realize he’s not in a position to help them get Bulgarian residency visas. The Last Seagull isn’t Ulrich Seidel’s Paradise: Love; we don’t sense exploitation from either side in the way there might be were there a difference in ethnicity or an age gap, and whatever sex is involved is hidden.
It all feels like Ivan is stuck in limbo, measuring out his days in cigarettes (seen) and alcohol (unseen, though its effect is evident). Then Russia invades Ukraine, and it’s not just the Ukrainian lady visitors who are affected but his son Atanas and family in Kyiv. We never get the full story of why Atanas refused to speak with his father for so long – abandonment issues obviously play a part – but as Ivan’s world shrinks and his options as a nearly sixty-year-old gigolo dwindle, the pull of family and something more meaningful than a carousel of aging women with limited resources becomes ever stronger.
Hristov cleverly interpolates scenes from Hristo Kovachev’s b&w 1977 documentary short Seagulls, with its telephoto lens capturing the glory days of this breed of beach charmer and reinforcing the sense of an existence whose time has passed. There’s a melancholy about Ivan but also, surprisingly, a sense of future possibilities and a recognition that certain things, like a yearning for love, don’t necessarily atrophy. As with all his works, the director’s respect for his subjects is conveyed not only through tone but in how he and regular cinematographer Orlin Ruevski films them, with a studied understanding of light and its play on their lived-in, magnetic faces.
Director: Tonislav Hristov
Written by: Tonislav Hristov, Kaarle Aho
With: Ivan Halachev, Filip Filipov, Ivan Fransuzov, Atanas Halachev, Ksenia Halacheva, Galina Adamova, Zulfia Sergeeva, Sotir Naumov
Producers: Kaarle Aho, Kai Nordberg
Co-producers: Torstein Parelius, Ingrid Galadriel Aune Falch, Christian Aune Falch, Andrea Stanoeva
Cinematography: Orlin Ruevski
Editing: Anders Teigen
Music: Petar Dundakov
Sound: Sander Stedenfeldt Olsen
Production companies: Making Movies (Finland), UpNorth Film (Norway), Soul Food (Bulgaria), in association with YLE, VGTV, BNT
World sales: CAT & Docs
Venue: Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival (International Competition); CPH:DOX (Highlights)
In Bulgarian, Russian, English
77 minutes
