Jajda

The characters of "Thirst" revolve around a feisty teenage dowser who (with the help of her well-digger father) unearths a trickle of suppressed desires in a poor family in rural, drought-stricken Bulgaria.

But don't let the word "feisty" fool you: while this film generally resembles a typical American indie film, it is somewhat un-Hollywood in its slow pace, fatalism, and lack of sentimentality or Puritanical attitude. "Thirst" is driven more by character and situation than plot or theme. Compared to typical American films, there's less drama and it's less cute, more raw. Well, on a scale of "Hello, My Name Is Doris" to "The Witch", let's say medium rare.

There are missteps. Too often oblique shots with seemingly artistic intentions don't work right - the editing or tone is off and the authorial intrusion is felt without any benefit to storytelling. More importantly, what little there is in the way of drama I often saw coming a mile away - the slow pacing didn't help - and it still arrived as a deus ex machina.

What Tsotsorkova does get right are the interactions with and reactions to the girl. My favorite parts are when they get slap happy. I felt the shock of broken convention, quickly replaced by the conviction that it was all perfectly in character, and more genuine than the conventional thing to do in that situation. You can tell this is the work of an actor.

Overall, then, a fairly well-made, but not groundbreaking, film that is worth watching for those into indie movies. Not as entertaining as, say, "Hello, My Name Is Doris", but also not as redolent of half-century-old cheese.