Since the early post-Soviet years till today, Dominant in Georgian cinema has been the trend reflecting the reality of life, political circumstances, social and economic reality and, consequently, in society, in most cases, among young people, the lack of prospects, the breakdown of relationships, the issues of confrontation and conflict between parents and children, people of different classes and generations, beliefs, orientations, interests, and their discussions from different angles and with different standards of assessment.
Recently, other directions have also emerged. Among them are cases of parables of news and events being transformed into modern, updated forms. Without the didactic sound of parables, the essence of which is aimed at a “philosophical” assessment and authorial judgment of modern society, the inner world of man, life, its values (preserved or devalued).
Levan Koghuashvili’s film “Blind Dates” (2013) is just such a modern parable. A metaphorical portrait of modern society, whose representatives are in a dead end of inaction and hopelessness, resigned to fate and passive, without goals and “living” interests.
The author shows not so much what is happening in the life of society, let’s say, in terms of the relevance of problems (which is one of the main “objects of interest” of modern Georgian cinema) but rather what exists behind the facade, in terms of the existence of that human condition, which is sometimes visible and sometimes invisible, which we sometimes see and sometimes do not see, and which has many causes, foundations and, consequently, a result for our views and the way society exists.
The story revolves around 40-year-old Sandro (Andro Sakvarelidze), his friend Iva (Archil Kikodze), and his parents (Marine Kartsivadze and Kakhi Kavsadze), the “fiancée” and her relatives, “Crushi,” her husband and other random encounters (Ia Sukhitashvili, Marlen Egutia, Levan Glonti, Vakho Chachanidze, Sopho Gvritishvili, Jano Izoria) are involved in it to varying degrees and in strength. The types of characters and the texture and costumes of the actors precisely tailored to them (as reflecting the typical features of the time and clothing, selected by artist Tinatin Kvinikadze) and the events depicted through their involvement are, along with the specific and familiar, typical and generalized. The atmosphere is conditional and sub-textual and contains a system of messages directed at the viewer, granting them complete freedom of perception and a special authorial position.
This is neither gloomy nor tragic, not “thrilling” neither full of adventures, but rather dull and boring, monotonous and devoid of special meaning, the life of exhausted people.
Sandro has been trapped in a closed circle, which he either does not try to break through at all, or tries weakly and passively. There is never any emotion on his face, his expression never changes. He seems calm, unruffled. He observes, thinks, acts mechanically, carries out the requests, decisions, and desires of others without a word or resistance. He seems to be an observer, a mute. In fact, he does not speak (just like others who communicate only with simple and short dialogues and say nothing special to each other) and obediently meets all occasions and contradictions. The viewer will even physically feel the confinement, the system of movement in time and space, based on the structure of the film.
A lot is happening around Sandro and Iva. The “system” of events and meetings includes fragments with characteristic features of the life and housing of the post-war period in Abkhazia and internally displaced persons, episodes depicting the power of prisoners, networks of fraudulent systems, the so-called criminal authorities and their influence on “public order,” stable family order and disrupted family relationships, and family (and not only) violence.
Even when everything starts to spiral, the situation becomes relatively tense, the interconnected and interrelated relationships (a meeting and meetings with Manana, her husband's release from prison and attempted fraud, retribution, quarrels, re-arrest, love "triangle(s), "conflict" in the family of a girl pregnant by Manana's husband and "blessing for the journey" for him and Sandro, etc.), Sandro calmly, imperturbably, without appropriate emotion and reaction leaves everything that is no longer happening around him, but directly to him, that concerns him personally.
Perhaps that is why this story is all the more dramatic and disturbing, like rain or a dull day after it, when the cloudy sky intensifies the sadness. The weather here is gloomy. Sandro's hidden worries, sadness, some kind of redemption acquire a real touch from the environment and are captured in the atmosphere, which is created expressively by the production designer Kote Japaridze and accurately and clearly recorded by Tato Kotetishvili's camera. Which becomes a single whole, like a real reflection of someone or something in a mirror. Wind and rain replace each other. This thin curtain of ash and water envelops the environment, like a blurring of the vision of the world.
Every day is similar. Years pass in this sameness, time flows slowly and “calmly.” The feeling of loneliness, isolation and a prolonged pause in time permeates the entire story, wherever the action should unfold – on the streets or stadiums of Tbilisi, in second-rate hotel rooms or apartments intended for “casual” or “short” meetings, in station buildings or seaside cafes, on the seashore or in the dwellings of internally displaced persons, against the backdrop of a painted seascape on the wall, at the gates of a prison or among the ruins surrounded by faceless buildings.
“Blind Dates” consists of a number of familiar “episodes” in which specific and characteristic details and signs can be easily detected. Long shots follow each other, less cut in editing. The camera moves slowly. “The gaze” seems to fixate or linger on something secondary. Such a tempo-rhythm is expressive of internal “development”, emotions, sensations and, in general, of the mediocre course of life, of “vanishing” time. Levan Koghuashvili combines these themes and branches in one space.
The plot, the sequence of events and the environment capture the image of reality with such an expression of the life of a modern person, which, like all times, consists of contradictions and contains many “stereotypes.”
Behind the plot and visual facade, there is a hidden meaning, which is conveyed through a system of symbols. A symbolic atmosphere is created, reflected in the real boundaries of life, and in this conditional connection, everything is conveyed through symbols and metaphors. And until the important, turning point in the development of events, everything goes smoothly, without any special zigzags and sharp transformations (deviations).
There is complete silence all around, a kind of hushed silence, filled only by ordinary, everyday noises and the only musical “interlude,” a song (composer Iakob Bobokhidze’s “Verkhvebi,” based on a poem by Galaktion Tabidze), which Sandro hears while talking to his father on the phone; it is being sung somewhere at a “distant” table, like a distant cry, lost in the rustle of the sea and rain, which then resounds several times, in short fragments, like an echo of an inner mood, and again a “deathly” silence comes.
Levan Koghuashvili's film is a parable about a modern society that no longer wants, or is no longer able (unlike the heroes of the films of the 1960-1980s generation of directors) to move forward or achieve something through action, for which everyday existence and life are a rendezvous built on a chain of coincidences, by following the instructions, control, or flow of others, obediently and, perhaps, not somewhere (as often happens in Georgian films) but by returning "to one's own head" and locking oneself there securely.
Lela Ochiauri
