“Your father has Alzheimer’s disease. It doesn’t matter who takes care of him. He doesn’t even remember that you are his son…” – this is what they say to Nader, the main character in Asghar Farhadi’s moving drama, the Oscar-winning Iranian film “A Separation” (2011). The man, who does not leave his sick father and cries like a child while bathing him, replies: “But I remember that he is my father…” It is possible that once in a thousand, Nader’s willpower may fail and an undignified thought may cross his mind regarding the care of his father but despite all this, we can see a devoted son who takes care of his helpless father, returning the attention that he himself selflessly received from him as a child.
We do not see similar sentiments and initiative in Dito Tsintsadze's film "And the Sun Rises" (2022), where the same topic appears - how a young boy takes care of his disabled father, or rather, how he is forced to take care of him but this relationship is full of resentment and tension. Anyway, at least in the beginning and in the finale too, the biological code of the father-son bond still prevails and outweighs and eliminates the loathe, resentment, negativity, and tension that existed before.
If we were to characterize Dito Tsintsadze's work in one phrase, we could use the title of one of his outstanding works, "Invasion" - how people intrude into each other's lives and how they influence each other sometimes in a negative and sometimes in a non-negative sense (I intentionally do not use the word "positive" since this almost never happens). At intersection, his characters fatally change and turn each other’s lives “upside down,” even if this intersection is short-term.
Dito Tsintsadze is undoubtedly a prominent figure in modern Georgian cinema. He talks about social problems, the struggle between generations in dramas and thrillers saturated with psychological narratives and generally, about everything that comes to the attention of a person raised in the Georgian Soviet space. His manner is doubly interesting insofar as he produces projects together with the foreign, in particular, German side and sees Georgian problems not only “from the inside” but also “from the outside,” takes “Georgian” characters to Europe and vice versa - introduces Europeans to the post-Soviet space and mentality. According to a widespread opinion (which I agree with), it is noteworthy that his most interesting works are made abroad and co-produced with foreigners, more often with the German side (“The Man from the Embassy,” “Invasion”…) for various reasons.
"And the Sun Rises" is not included in the “foreign” project. Actually, it is a Georgian work, staffed with Georgian actors and a creative team (except for the producer, Konstantin Luzignan, and the Russian actress, Anya Chipovskaya). It may sound stereotypical based on the above, but unfortunately, this film was not as impressive as his other previous (foreign) works for me, although it certainly has certain positive qualities.
The film, created with a few pages of script and a two-week shooting period, explores the fathers and sons’ ever-current problems between son Nika (Andro Chichinadze) and his father Sandro (Temiko Chichinadze). Nika takes care of his father, who has been disabled since a car accident, and is preparing to go to Prague for a five-year contract, while he is trying to find a shelter for his father. The relationship is extremely tense and toxic - the father accuses his son of being heartless and indifferent, while the son accuses his father of disrespecting his deceased mother, humiliating her, being selfish, and being a bad father. Nika's girlfriend, Nastya (Anya Chipovskaya), enters their lives, trying to find her place in these two people’s lives and, potentially, even neutralize the tension between them.
Sandro approaches the future daughter-in law in a very strange way. He wonders what she liked about his son, does not hesitate to insult his dead wife, saying that she was a cocotte, etc. Nastya soon realizes why this man puts on such a disgusting mask. Sandro even pushes the girl to tell Nika about her previous relationship and abortion. It is logical to see that the man is jealous of his son and, to some extent, arouses a carnal desire for the girl. The main thing is that the girl’s appearance simultaneously strains the relationship between father and son even more but at the same time it seems to become a catalyst for dispelling the tension.
Exposing personal relationships and delving into psychological depths is not strange for the director. This means how the father distrusts his son and dreams of how he kills him in his sleep, how he tells him to throw him off a cliff, and in one moment, bursting with anger, Nika actually pushes his father off a cliff. What turned out to be the most interesting was Sandro's moral complexity, a kind of degradation and subsequent correction to the final purification and catharsis. It is clear how vulnerable and helpless he is when, at night, in torrential rain and thunder, in the darkness of the basement, a figure appears next to his bed and calls out to Nick in fear, and several times he even lies and plays the scene of death. In general, the director well presents a psychological portrait of a person with a broken and deteriorating health. We have heard many times how the disease “evilizes” a person, depriving him of everything important and leaving him helpless, relying on others. This powerlessness is often formed in anger as a result of reality and the inability to change oneself, and when it can no longer be contained inside, it is transferred outside, to someone else. The phenomenon of the destruction of the parental image also appears when Sandro himself tells how he lost respect for his father, when he completely changed and began to act like a clown when he was with other officials and respectable people. Added to this is the fact that Sandro himself admits that he was a bad father towards Nika and could not show proper warmth and attention.
It is here that the finale of the film is revealed in advance, that this misunderstanding will not last long and separation will reconcile them. In the most valuable moment of the film, the son hugs his crying father when the latter asks for forgiveness and tells him that he really loves and is grateful that he cares for him. On the one hand, this is an expression of true parental love, and in the Georgian environment, where the remnants of the Soviet past psycho-portrait and the expression of the Georgian patriarchal system are manifested separately in the relationship between fathers and sons, which is why their relationship often fluctuates between minimal expression of feelings, rudeness, emotional inaccessibility and alienation in Georgian reality and if warmth is expressed, then minimally. Love is there, but it manifests itself strangely, often only in special moments. Thus, Sandro's most vulnerable and spiritually naked moment appears at the most critical moment, when he apologizes to his son - partly because of a fairly well-founded fear of abandoning him, and partly because of a real pang of conscience and admission of guilt.
The night before the separation, the three celebrate the last day of their stay together with a small dinner. Sandro is even dressed in a suit, and, finally, when it gets dark and a disabled man looks at the couple standing in front of him with their backs to the sky, he takes one breath and dies. He understands very well that in the new reality there will be no place for him and he will burden his son, daughter-in-law and himself with unnecessary loads. However, the fact that a representative of the older generation remains alone, excluded from the younger generation is also a characteristic nuance for Dito Tsintsadze. In this case, there is no place for violent murder and criminal drama, on the contrary - Sandro himself takes responsibility to put an end to it and makes a step forward. In a strange environment hated by his son, he chose death rather than being alone, he repented of his sins in a way, he even asked Nika for forgiveness before that, in the end, his carnal desire was satisfied by seeing Nastya's bare breasts, which Nika himself gave the girl the right to do, and he followed the first color of the sky into the future. With a “noble” farewell, he freed his son from further worries, remorse, and responsibility, while also breaking the chains of the past: black-and-white photos depicting the family’s history were burned together in a bonfire, and the house was prepared for its new owners.
The film is simple in a two-way sense. The minimalist script was filled with impromptu dialogues and instant directorial decisions on the set. The simplicity is not burdened by the dramaturgical-visual aspect, on the contrary - this is a rare case in the director’s work when a darkened, gray, and gloomy atmosphere does not dominate the plot. The symbolic “bringer of colors” is precisely Nastya and also the little snake, which appears twice with her in a strange symbolism. It is interesting, is this the fateful biblical serpent that must destroy the family or break the bridge that, perhaps, should be broken and solve this small conflict situation in a tragic, albeit logical way?
The film is more like the story of an ordinary Georgian family, which you will see, understand for a moment and think about but soon forget. The concept is more local than on a broad scale, despite the fact that the topic is quite relevant and global. The characters are not distinguished and this has nothing to do with the fact that we are talking about ordinary, lower-middle class people, nor is it a problem with the actors - they portray exactly the indifference devoid of sentiments that this requires, and, this environment and the relationship between father and son could not have had any other direction. Parallel inserts (the theme of faith and the existence of God, Nastya's abortion, etc.) are cut into the dramaturgical linearity, which only artificially and insufficiently complement the theme. The space is simultaneously closed and open, and the theme, which should evoke empathy and reflection, remains a little unacceptable and leaves a feeling of uncertainty.
Being somewhat experimental even for Dito Tsintsadze, the film still tries to end on a more positive note ultimately unlike the Iranian work with a similar problem. In the end, love and humanity win and people with a different moral compass emerge, who admit their mistakes and analyze the problem, which they may not be able to fully understand, but realize that by giving up their position, they will destroy the broken bridge and the path back to the past full of mistakes, although they will look at it with a pure face and explore the new. This is probably the most positive thing about this film.
Eter Parchukidze
