“There’s barely anyone left to die, so I do remember.” Andrey Paounov’s January encompasses the human soul reckoning with itself and the outside world in the midst of a snowstorm and unseen monsters no one will escape from.
Andrey Paounov’s January encompasses the human soul reckoning with itself and the outside world in the midst of a snowstorm and unseen monsters no one will escape from. Yordan Radichkov’s play January is a master class in imagery, isolation and the conflict between modernity and tradition. His interrogation of past, present and life and death is intensified by the confinement of a disconnected village that has not turned with the times. Under a deep snowstorm, water spirits and wolves terrorise men who are human metaphors for a Bulgaria struggling to move forward and be at peace with what they were leaving behind.
The harrowing notes of Radichkov’s January are not for the faint-hearted. It takes a great deal of bravery, openness and an understanding of both metaphorical and sometimes metaphysical journeys that the band of men, caught in the treacherous blanket of danger that a Bulgarian snowstorm go through. Director, Andrey Paounov, has tackled the beauty and haunting battles of human existence that come with January, with a boldness that I find astonishing.
Paounov takes his time, establishing the wasteland that we are going to spend our time in. He shows us the mass expanse, intensified by the choice of black and white colour scheme, which makes the men we meet both gigantic and tiny. Two men are stuck in a snowstorm. Crossing the road into town is a necessity, but it’s impossible. The thick snow has seen to that. Wolves are howling through the night, ravenous. Nevertheless, we meet Petar Motorov who we’ve grown to know is a small business owner. We’ve been shown around his cabin and grounds with the utmost artistic beauty and unease. He’s not here. His sleigh is not there, and his shotgun and fur coat are gone. He has made the dangerous journey through the woods with the wolves… And everything else.
Paounov and his actors have taken away the front row seat, wrapped us in a fur coats, covered our faces with scarves and demanded we face the snowstorm with them.
When his sleigh returns, it’s empty, except for a frozen wolf. The eyes are fierce and pierce through the black and white to burn a glance into the side of your face. Still no Petar. What descends on the men after, is a cerebral attack of both physical and spiritual form. We find that not only are there wolves but there are also entities known as “tenetz”. They are vampires, ghosts, or water beasts, depending on who you talk to. They bring with them endless sleep, injected with a disconnection from reality. They leave you sleeping. Never waking up. The kicker is, you never knew you were asleep.
As the men venture through a twisted journey, January rings to me as a study of human desire, peril and the paths we take to run away from our most primal inevitabilities. Death. Our dreams. Our ideals. Time. Political ideologies. Identity markers. All of those things that dictate our everyday lives become a strong current that can drown us should we start swimming away from them. Paounov sits us down and makes us face human deterioration, in the most beautiful way. He doesn’t merely show us it, he shows us men fighting for hope and survival and crushes us with the fight’s uselessness.
When we are thrust back into full colour and an upscale bar, it jars our senses. By the time we hit the penultimate scene, we’re invested. We are these men. We are Petar. Petar is us. What have we just been through? Have we just been to a bar? Did we ever leave? How did we get there? The battle of entities from the past just before this scene invokes more of this uncertainty. Have we just been asleep? Is this all a twisted dream our brain is making to keep us all alive? As we’re thrust back into the place we know, we’re far less certain than when we started and I think that’s the point. It’s not for lack of story-telling or a confused plot. We have just masterfully, carefully and meticulously discombobulated. I’m left with joy being completely mind-blown in a state of uncertainty, happy focus and gripping intrigue and engagement, by someone who knew exactly what they were doing. They wanted this feeling and they welcomed it. I feel I’ve been crafted a marble statue by a master sculptor. Paounov and the whole team
have crafted a world that is terrifying in its essence but solid, exciting and mesmerising in its
projection.
Invoking images of wolves, ravens, vast spaces and intimate framings of the performers, we are not given a front-row seat. Paounov and actors Samuel Finzi, Iossif Sarchadzhiev, Zachary Baharov, Leonid Yovchev, Malin Krastev and, Borislav Chouchkov have taken away the front row seat, wrapped us in a fur coats, covered our faces with scarves and demanded we face the snowstorm with them.
January (2021) plays in selected cinemas nationwide and on digital platforms through bulldog film distribution
