Auf Umwegen

The novelty of this romantic drama is that it was made in Bulgaria in the mid-Sixties. In most other respects it is a familiar, arty rumination on the nostalgia of lost love. A pair of ex-lovers, who have sacrificed personal happiness to public duty, accidentally meet after a 17-year separation. Both are now married and involved in their careers. A drive to Sofia, the capital, provides an interesting glimpse of the barren the Bulgarian countryside of the time and triggers off flashbacks of their student romance. A number of questions arise during their meeting and reminisces of the past. Why did they ever separate? What makes their love impossible? The film is obliged to answer not these questions, but more insightfully the film goes as far as questioning their idealistic sacrifice, which for the era makes for an interesting comment on the changing Communist thought of the day. The film was entered into the 5th Moscow International Film Festival where it won awards.