Maria Bakalova Is the Borat Sequel Breakout, but Transgression Showed What She Can Do

In the few weeks since Borat Subsequent Moviefilm dropped on Amazon Prime, Rudy Giuliani has unsurprisingly remained the movie’s most noteworthy conversational export. News headlines about Giuliani and his most unusual way of removing a mic were the topic of the day at whatever the pandemic-era equivalent of the watercooler is. But it’s to the credit of the mockumentary’s other buzzed-about element and secret weapon, Bulgarian actress Maria Bakalova, that its shocking climax is as effective as it is in targeting Donald Trump’s private attorney. Borat Subsequent Moviefilm may have broken Bakalova into the mainstream with her multidimensional portrayal of the oddball Tutar. But it isn’t until we go back to her first lead role, in the 2018 Bulgarian-language drama Transgression, that we can fully appreciate how well-suited Bakalova was to play someone searching for identity in a foreign place where the media has a key influence on the perception of women.
The gung-ho hilarity and up-for-anything attitude Bakalova brings to the Borat sequel makes for the closest thing to a can’t-miss-it performance that 2020 has provided. It’s one thing that Bakalova holds her own against Sacha Baron Cohen and his seasoned on-camera bravura. It’s another thing altogether to supplant him as the breakout of the sequel, shepherding the soul of a movie—that nobody expected to be as perversely touching as it is—while keeping in hilarious lockstep with the scuzzy legacy that the Borat name implies. Her impressive performance is also intriguingly ripe for potential awards season recognition.
This ability comes foreshadowed in a surprisingly different film. Transgression finds Bakalova operating in a more nuanced key as Yana, a teenage avatar of youthful vulnerability and daring who runs off with a has-been rocker that’s twice her age. What’s her deal? The ambiguity ends up being part of the movie’s point; while Borat Subsequent Moviefilm underlines the Trump era’s hypocritical American values in bold Sharpie, Transgression uses the pen’s cap to gently nudge us toward simmering debates about agency and womanhood. Flashbacks to the strange relationship between Yana and Stoil (Rossen Pentchev) are spliced with scenes in which she finds herself as a talk show guest attempting to defend a connection that is viewed as immoral and reckless by everyone else. And that’s before it’s suggested that Stoil, looking a bit like Mickey Rourke, may in fact be her father.
Yeah, Transgression’s a complicated movie, one defined less by decisions and more by the havoc those decisions create. It’s also a movie that offers little clarity while ping-ponging between past and present, but—like Borat—it’s Bakalova’s captivating turn that provides a center of gravity to orbiting questions of individuality and self-worth. Val Todorov, writer/director of Transgression, is quick to notice the similarities. From his perspective, “both movies actually belong to the same subgenre: ethnofiction, a blend of documentary and fiction in the area of visual anthropology,” respectively peeling back the layers of society in Bulgaria and America.