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Visualizations of “Hooligans”. A Bulgarian Film of the 1960s
but not in the sense of the ideology. Even her outlook and gestures are polyse¬
mantic—her femininity is emphasized through the choice for this character of the
delicate actress Ilka Zafirova (Fig. 6).
‘The gifted, smart and good young girl, easily rejected and stigmatized by the
regime as “hooligan”, was designed as a character who could uncover the false
morality and challenge the system with her behavior. The richness of her charac¬
ter gave the nickname She-Wolf additional meanings—liberty and strength. For
the role Valchanov chose the student from the Vissh institut za teatralno izkustvo
(‘High School for Theatre Art’) Ilka Zafirova, who personally had problems with
the authorities because of her nonconforming behavior and way of dressing. So
Valchanov could rely on her instinct and spontaneity for playing the role.
The music in the film served several purposes. In important scenes Ana sings
contemporary songs (Italian ballad, rock and jazz as for example songs of Rita
Pavone, etc.), defined by the regime as decadent. The music allows getting into
the emotions of her character and expresses the impulse of Ana to spirituality and
nobility. In the same way the music, with its references to the social and cultural
“West”, was to evoke certain emotions in the audience, criticizing albeit indirectly
the narrow norm of the restrictive regime.
Though the main clash between the director Kondov and the educator Kirilov
followed a true conflict in the school between director Grancharov and some
teachers and educators, in the film it was symbolically raised as conflict between
the constructive power/will and the destructive one, between humanity (Kondov)
and regression of humanity (Kirilov) (Fig. 7).
The battle between them was polarizing; the main protagonists did not experi¬
ence a character development in the course of the film. The depth of the conflict
is visualized through dialogues and the composition of the dynamic film scenes.
Significantly, in this contradictory “duel”, the young educator Kirilov, just gradu¬
ated from university—who as a “product of the new system” should bear the ideas
of communism but in fact supported violence—embodied ruthlessness and the
formal-bureaucratic pupil-teacher relationship. Personification of the brutal, ag¬
gressive careerist, the negative protagonist Kirilov was in the final version of the
film complemented by another, also negative, character, the figure of the sports
teacher—weak, a non-person “meek, faceless and spineless” (Andreykov 1965:
42)—and also young, a product of the new socialist society (Fig. 8). In the scenes
of the “comrades court” in the LES, the stress is on showing its problematic nature,
how it evokes feelings not only of guilt but of humiliation and can lead to encap¬
sulation of the self (Fig. 9).
‘The critique of state politics to isolate the LES is visualized through the sym¬
bolism of the fence. In the film, Kondov fights for respect for the students, for the
destruction of the fence. The demolition of the fence is one of the many visual al¬
legories in the film. These scenes give an optimistic end to the film; not only direct
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