The Swimming Pool (1977)

The story begins with a serious disillusionment experienced by a young girl at her school-leaving farewell ball. Apostol, an architect on this side of forty, meets by chance Bella at a swimming pool on the night of her graduation party. The generation gap is a wide one, but Bella falls sway to his intelligence, friends, his life-style and the respect everybody shows for her. Boyan is an actor and comic impersonator. The complex relationships among the three characters hover between friendship and love and involve certain professional motifs. The architect, an even-tempered man, is dispirited because the bold design decisions he has been taking have been regularly rejected. The overly playful actor surrounded by dummies and stage-pros, builds his life exclusively on outer effects. But deep inside he is sad because he knows that he has no real talent. Bella, unexpectedly mature for her age, cannot remain indifferent to the falsehoods and the indifferent attitude to life. She is in conflict with her own mother - a shallow television journalist. Bella's unconscious protest finds its real bearings only when she gets a glimpse of anti-fascist past of the architect who is already infatuated with her. At the end, she marries his best friend, Boyan, though Apostol would be the most important person in her lifetime. The film is notable for the vivid symbolism of its imagery. The swimming pool is not only the place of the action but also a metaphor of human life.