Modern consumer society has not only deepened alienation in the 21st century but also given it new, almost imperceptible forms. This problem is historically old, however, alienation has become an organic part of everyday life against the background of technological progress and a life oriented towards consumption in today's life. A person is no longer just alone, he is systematically isolated. It is precisely the diagnosis of this spiritual crisis that has become one of the main missions of auteur cinema. Visconti, Bergman, Antonioni… After their films, talking about this topic either carries the risk of repetition or leaves the impression of excessive ambition. Especially when it comes to a debut.
Vakho Jajanidze's film, “The Real Beings” (2025) is the director's first independent work although this is not his first attempt to understand the inner emptiness of man. His student film, “Exodus,” dealt with the same problem – a spiritual crisis that has become the norm today. The film is set in Chiatura, a mining town – a space that carries within itself the code of social exhaustion and historical isolation. Two single women’s daily routine, the environment familiar to the director and the silent social tension created the conditions for generalizing a private story.
“The Real Beings” was based on Teona Dolenjashvili’s novel of the same name. Dolenjashvili describes tired, disappointed, in love and sometimes reckless people who are faced with a choice: between life and death, love and hate, repentance and oblivion.
Vakho Jajanidze’s “real beings” are people who seem to exist fully – they work, communicate, create families – but behind this existence there is emptiness. Their relationships are instinctive, emotionally exhausted and only outwardly stable. This is existence in the mode of imitation of life.
The plot is simple but the structure is multilayered. The director develops three storylines: in the form of the older generation – Lana, Nika, Keta and Tengiz; the stories of the children – Datuna and Bebe and the teenager Nia. One space is divided into two families and people are separated from each other as beings. Two symbols enter the narrative from the very beginning: the forest – a space where a person is left facing instincts, and the lake – the subconscious, silent desires and suppressed fears.
Lana and Keta are united by a common past, although this unity already exists only in memory. Returning to the same space forces them not to restore relationships but rather to re-experience the old emptiness. The first scene, shot in the dining room – from a long shot, with a static composition – shows an imitation of family cohabitation. The camera seems to be patiently observing the characters and recording not words but tension, suppressed aggression and that momentary desire that is more like polite communication than the beginning of a real relationship.
Betrayal has become a natural state for both couples: Nika is an unfaithful husband, Keta is an unfaithful wife. Their relationship is fueled not by passion but by an attempt to fill an inner void. This is an instinctive movement towards emptiness. The camera records a boat lost in the lake from above and the surface of the water covered with dumpsters becomes a visual metaphor for the characters’ emotional state – feelings are divided, suppressed and alienated from each other.
The children’s line creates the most painful layer of the film. Datuna and Bebe are beings neglected by their family members. Bebe looks at the world with a direct, childish gaze – she seeks contact, tries to share her discoveries with others and does not know how to protect herself from emotional neglect. Datuna chooses aggression as a self-defense mechanism – aggression directed not only against others but against himself too.
Datuna’s inner violence is transformed into the visual language of computer games. The camera captures the moment when the computer game character resembles the mother figure in the form of an aggressive fighter. This is the child’s unconscious attempt to express the emotion that she cannot formulate in real life through the language of violence. The “game” played on the lake shore, in the arbour, is also a continuation of this fantasy – an imaginary murder as an illusion of liberation.
Bebe seeks dialogue everywhere – with her mother, who politely dismisses her and with Datuna, whom she considers a friend, an equal. However, in both cases the answer is no. Bebe’s childhood is a vulnerable space, where there is no escape from pain.
Nia’s line is the weakest in the film. The character, who is at a critical age, seems to open up a potentially interesting direction but it remains only a rhythmic pause in the end – a movement that does not intensify the plot or add a new layer of the problem.
Tengiz is the only character who cannot coexist with this environment. He works, observes nature, captures it with a camera, as if trying to connect with the world from a distance. Leaving the camera turned on in the final scene and disappearing from the shot himself is intended to emotionally engage the viewer although this gesture remains more of a conceptual idea than real empathy.
Bebe tries to make contact again in the finale. A snail – a childish discovery, a symbol of vulnerability – is offered to Datuna as an emotional request to be protected although Datuna rejects this gesture as well. Bebe follows him to the lake and falls into a hidden hole in the water – as if finally sinking into his own inner world, where time stops and words lose their power. The child cannot get out of the water without others’ help. The director stops the narrative right here – he does not give us a solution, he only shows us the result.
Minimalism of dialogues, elongated shots and a slow rhythm. Visually, the aesthetics is refined but emotionally alienated. This “ordering” and “problematics” distance the viewer from the story. Slow cinema, as a form is not a problem in itself. The problem is that in this case, form comes before content.
In “The Real Beings,” the director’s cinematic taste, knowledge, and cultural references are clearly felt. However, while watching the film, one often gets the feeling that you have seen these people, this space, and this environment somewhere before – with someone else, in another film.
The film shows a world where people are physically together, but emotionally very far from each other. It accurately captures the symptoms of alienation but it fails to generate empathy and/or even aggression towards the characters. Thus, “The Real Beings” is more of a diagnosis than a feeling, more of an observation than an unconventional, new understanding of the problem.
Maya Levanidze
