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"…Angels of the Dumps is reminiscent of Vittorio de Sica’s Miracle in Milan (1950) and Alberto Lattuada and Federico Fellini’s Variety Lights (1951). A tragicomedy on displaced people in the post-Communist era (it’s subtitle is In-Between People). Its protagonist are mostly oldtimers from the circus world and the variety stage. When the circus burns down and the "last performance" ends in tragedy, the fault for the loss is laid upon corrupt officials and smalltime gangsters. Veteran screen star Meri Boshkova - who played the title role in the first Macedonian feature film made, Frosina (1952) - can be seen in the role of Mimi, a woman at the dumpyard who lives with her dreams.". The viewpoints The film "Angels of the Dumps" is a bitter farce story dealing with peoples lives and destinies the in the tough post-communist transition. They resemble a refuse dump full of destinies and human dramas thrown away in the junk site of the history. Seems that there is no clean spot all along that site. That is the outlook of a tragi-comical, "morally ecological" film story. In that farce viewpoint the transition world reassembles a devastated circus under the sky and a sad place of melancholic miracles. In that perspective people are seen as sad clowns searching false solutions, either in the painful memories, in the vivid night and daydreams or in the miserable reality. They are like angels fallen from the false communist sky into the absurd ground of the transition. Though sad and pitiful, the characters in the "Angels of the Dumps" are confirmation to the substantial point, that today's junk - might be a former value! The story Itzko is a former clown imagining and collecting stuff for his one-in-a -lifetime circus show. Meanwhile, Gavril (Gabriel), a worker in the glass factory accepts in his slum house the family of his fellow Matey (Matthew), whose house is being demolished in order to execute the city plan and the building of new junk place. Gavril lives with his noisy father Athanasius, a former policeman, than a movie projectionist and a Stalinist remaind in that conviction "out of stubbornness". He is gathering "exposits" for his private own historical museum - a part of an old optimistic Soviet film, among the other equipment. Party propagandist are crossing the devastated suburb quarter they live in, agitating for the new democratic times and European values. When Gabriels and Mathew's house comes on a turn to be ruined, they are starting their fierce seek for a safe home or a shelter for their families, searching, as all the other characters, a new time's "place under the sun". In one of those hoping removals, Athanasius loses his film ribbon. Mimi, Izko's senile ex-wife leaves her home and joins him, hallucinating or dreaming her past. She wants to participate in the new Itzko's circus show, too. And it gets realized one day when an army of rebelled retired people from the city arrives in the City refuse heap, searching justice and protesting against the whole social maltreatment they are exposed to. In the presence of all the characters, the circus show turns into a final tragic farce. The dreams and expectations transform into a cynical disaster and sad breakdown of hopes and projects. In the bitter events, everybody has lost something. Only Athanasius finds his lost consolation: his lost film. The contemporary, Centennial memory to whom this film is dedicated to. |
