School age is the most difficult time for a teen. This is the time when he has to reevaluate many things and start building his life. The wrong decision can destroy everything and there will be no way out. The circle of friends a teenager chooses is of great importance as well as, who his role model and idol will be. If he grows up to be a bad person, it will not be the fault of the school or his parents. He will only have to blame himself because a person can choose his friends and everything depends on his decisions. He himself chooses which path to take.
Three students graduated from one school. One chose the way to the church and became a priest, the second a minister, and the third a drug addict. All three studied in the same way, although they did not live in the same conditions. It seems that one of the heroes, Chekie, could never afford, otherwise he would bring a diamond ring to the school principal. He could have had a great football career but he tried drugs and ruined everything. The heroes of Levan Koghuashvili’s film “Street Days” (2010) are people who have spent their entire lives on the bridge of hair. Some survive, some don’t.
Chekie struggles between drugs and dignity. Sometimes one wins, sometimes the other. Everything really revolves around Ika, the minister’s son. This guy thinks that drugs are fashionable and that a man should try everything. The shackles and ugly thinking that have been around since the 1990s do not leave any generation. Everything goes in a circle. Again the street or drugs, again poverty and problems that never end.
Who is Chekie? A 45-year-old man with a weak mentality, a person about whom there are a lot of rumors. Even his child is not enough for him to get out of this situation. They say that he will do anything for the sake of drugs, he might even sell his own wife. However, throughout the film, the audience realizes that people are lying and this man is not at all what they say about him.
Where is the dignity? Drug addicts have no dignity. They will do anything for drugs. They will sell everyone, ruin everyone, just to get a dose. They sink into a green, dirty swamp and continue to live there. They are not interested in anyone or anything, not even themselves. This topic, of course, is painful for everyone. Time has not helped this situation, and society is still facing the same problem today. There is no way out. The only chance to put everything back in its place is for the police to fulfill their duty and catch the drug dealers. The police do everything else in this film. They also have no morality. The main thing is to catch the minister's son with drugs in his hands and then blackmail his father. Everything is upside down, and the solution that Chekie finds is a shot.
Drugs in this film are not only a physical substance, but also a moral weak point, a symbol of destruction. In Koghuashvili's world, drug addiction does not begin with a syringe - it begins with a choice. This is the path of people abandoned by the system - in which the street is not just a geographical place, but also a psychological state.
The film is not like other banal films shot on this topic. The main topic is not only drugs. It's just that this problem is visible on the surface. The key issues are choice and dignity, how far a person can go, where the line is between sobering up and sinking completely, what a drug addict’s freedom is and whether imprisonment is a solution. If you want to save him, you have to put him in a special institution. If he gets really desperate, he can find drugs in prison. The police are not interested in what is happening on the streets. They know everything very well, they just do nothing to improve the situation.
Levan Koghuashvili skillfully uses visual language to convey the gravity and hopelessness of the film. The shots are often saturated with dark, gray tones, which emphasize the hopelessness and poverty of the street. The dynamic shots, made with a handheld camera, place the viewer at the epicenter of events, which increases the feeling of realism. The miserable, gray landscapes of the city reflect the inner state of the characters and the hopelessness that reigns around them. This aesthetic further reinforces the film's message that we should consider the problem not only from the perspective of individuals, but also from the perspective of the entire society.
The film is like two banks of the same river. On one side there are Chekie and his "friends" and on the other - schoolchildren, teenagers who have not fully understood the meaning of good and bad. They think that all means in life are justified. Each of them has a syndrome of impunity. Givi fearlessly brings his father's gun loaded with bullets to school. He knows that no one will be caught for this. Ika and Chekie plan to kidnap a child for 8,000 dollars, without even fearing the police. In the presence of drug dealers, drugs are exchanged for money. Everyone knows who the drug dealer is, but no one intervenes. In reality, no one wants to solve the problems. Society continues to live as if drugs, fights, drug dealers and kidnapping are commonplace. Over the years, all these problems have become part of existence.
“Street Days” is not just a film about drug addiction. It is a film about abandoned people, a broken system and a young generation that must cope with the weight of choice itself. The director does not give the viewer the illusion of a way out. On the contrary, he realistically and honestly shows the moral crisis of society, where dignity and responsibility have become the rarest values. The film reminds us that every small decision is an integral part of a person’s biography, and that is why a choice - even the most insignificant one - is a moral position that either destroys life or builds it. "Street Days" makes us think where the line between individual and social responsibility is drawn, and leaves us with the most painful question: what would we choose if we were in Chekie's place?
Barbare Kalaijishvili
