It’s a shame that Eastern European film industries were so restricted politically and financially because life behind the Iron Curtain was a fertile backdrop for film noir: gray streets, neglected communities, drab architecture, oppressive atmospheres, fear and intrigue. Only occasionally were directors able to harness this dark, dramatic potential for crime stories, and one excellent example is revered Bulgarian director Rangel Vulchanov’s Inspektorat i noshtta (US: The Inspector and the Night), the lone Bulgarian film in this collection. Despite very little action, the film blends elements of the whodunit, police procedural, and even psychological thriller into an intimate, inventive story of one nameless detective’s (Georgi Kaloyanchev) investigation of a murder throughout the dreary, rain-pounded streets of Sofia. When a married businessman is found poisoned in his home, the inspector interrogates a cast of suspects and associates in endless rotation: the victim’s wife, mistress, lawyer, doctor, and landlady, among others. Each conversation reveals a bit more of the truth not only about the case but about human psychology and vice, the camera often slow panning around the interlocutors as the inspector gets closer and closer. The city is dark (almost black), filthy (even the doctor’s office appears anything but sterile), and wet (the only thing more constant than the rain is the smoking in cramped quarters). Shadows in narrow alleys veil identities between the inspector’s encounters with nervous suspects, his flashlight the sole illumination on their faces as if he’s hunting rats. The film’s truly unique aspect, however, is the inspector’s occasional breaking of the fourth wall, turning to address the camera while his witness continues to recount their story in the background.