This rather baffling complex surrealist movie, the directing/writing debut of Georgian filmmaker Zaza Rusadze, is set in a small town in his country some time in the near future. The somewhat sketchy plot tells the story of young Dmitrij who has just come back from studying in Western Europe and now has a lowly monotonous clerical job in the austere Court House where is despot of a father is the Public Prosecutor. For fun he escapes into the country and goes rock climbing.At a social gathering where there is an odd group of people who seem somehow related to each other, he meets Andrej who is the only other person under 50 years old in the room. According to his Aunt Irina they used to hang out together as children, but Dimitrij cannot remember that, and anyway Irina has Alzheimer’s so she could have made the whole thing up. Andrej is a troubled soul who evidently hits people after he has hit the bottle, but as Dimitrij has taken a shine to him nonetheless he persuades him to try rock-climbing for the first time. The outing is a big success and there is an obvious attraction between the two, but it doesn’t develop into anything beyond that as it simply not that sort of movie.
I think its fair to assume that Rusadze intends this all to be so much than the narrative about this two young men, and the larger vision he wants us to see is his view on life in his country is post Russia. There is obviously an underbelly of old-fashioned communism that remains and that is not to every one’s liking. Beyond that I can only guess as to what Rusadze means with all the complex metaphors he uses which are not helped by this collection of rather glum characters so stiffly played by a local cast of actors. The only one who seems the slightest bit happy is Aunt Irina who is gradually sinking into her own world.
This rather bizarre movie that evidently disturbed a great deal of the audience when it was premiered at Berlinale’s visionary Panorama section is quite intriguing and maybe (hopefully) I will be able to understand it a little more on a second viewing.
