Thanks for the memories!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

But unfortunately not that fleshed out. Story-wise there is not that much there. And I should have been warned. When the cover states things like a "cross between Tarantino ..." and another statement that states, that this movie might be a contender for an "Oscar for best foreign movie" ... you know something is wrong. You just don't know what that might be. But visually this is a (black/white) treat.It's just a shame, that the story doesn't get that much attention. It's pretty incoherent, not to mention that even the most beautiful cinematography (metaphors) are not working if their sole purpose is to confuse the viewer and not deliver any kind of direct link to what we are seeing. Of course you could argue that I didn't get all the references and that might be true. But this still aims higher than it actually can reach. So while not a bad movie at all, there is still quite a few things to improve with this one.

In a time where brutality in movies only count when you see tons of blood, sex only count when it looks like porn and the story only count when there are 20 story switches with three parallel stories in it, the Bulgarian cinema brought us a movie which have not any of this in it and although it is ten times better.I am finished five minutes ago watching this movie. And there is no way for me to describe the reason why i give that flick a ten.Not one minute of that movie is boring, nothing in it is hyperbolical. Its lyrical without being intellectual.Just watch it. You will not regret any minute of you're live that you will have spended for watching this movie.

Saw this at the Sydney Film Festival and was a little disappointed. Seemed to be a lot of hype surrounding this. Really liked the black and white photography and had high hopes after a nice opening. Unfortunately the movie lost me in the middle and never quite recovered.I'd have to agree with one of the earlier posts. I think Gardev has definitely borrowed from other films and directors. Apart from that Todorov's screenplay doesn't quite work for me but I would love to read the book (the English translation is released next year). I found the little stories and anecdotes from minor characters to be intrusive and tiresome after a while and I don't know if the voice-over was that effective.Thought the acting was fine and there were some amusing moments but overall I can't work out if this was supposed to be a thriller or black comedy, heist flick, noir potboiler or a bit of all of these.

As a SWF I was literally taken into watching this movie by a friend and I truly regret every minute of it. Later, browsing through Bulgarian blogs I stumbled upon something I think I should translate to every non-Bulgarian native viewer to see. Since I hate plagiarism, I'll post it:HOW TO STEAL ZIFTFirst: We steal the plot from the movie "Crank" with Jason Statham (2006)!Second: We steal style from the soundtrack of Kill BillThird: We steal a dozen of a military jokes !Fourth: We steal Felini's characters!Fifth: We steal Kusturitsa's background!Sixth: We steal the Phillip Marlowe's monologues, created decades earlier from the great writer Raymond Chandler!Seventh: We steal episodes from about at least 10-12 worldwide known movies, I don't have spare time enough to count the details!..... we mix all the things on black and white and voilà! We get worldwide applause and we amaze the already berserk Hollywood:((( At least this is the info taken from our "objective" press (excuse me)!What the heck are we left with? We can "steal" the same movie at some torrent site and to at least know that we're not in for it financially from all this SH*T! We steal, we watch, we swear and we delete the movie afterward. At least if we have the opinion of our own.The movie "Zift" is super pitiful... at my personal estimation! I don't give a sh*t about the competent jury, about mass advertisement and box office records in Bulgaria's standards! The mere tries for the movie to look like Metallica's video clip doesn't save the production at all. It is just that every minute of this movie you're guessing what exactly movie you were watching the same thing in and you try to guess the title :((( We have good level of actor's play, that's only positive thing, WITH THE EXCEPTION of Tanya Ilieva, who pushes lines with the power of expression of the green euglene in the non-fertile age. At least her tits are nice :))) Aaaa! And this "Nosferatu" from the Bulgarian Big Brother 4... Tzvetan! He shows as a mockery with mustache, obviously made out of plastic tape.What we have at the end of the long run: that the "Modern Bulgarian Cinema" is not Modern, is not Bulgarian and is not cinema at all :((( Not to mention that chewing asphalt in the years when chewing gum Ideal was becoming cult, is true perversion!I don't like this movie!