There is a very interesting Latin expression: "Punishment comes limping," that is, there is no crime that will remain unpunished, no matter how much time passes, even thirteen years. Especially when a person has sins from his childhood to repent.
"Greetings to my tormented childhood" - these are the words pronounced by classmates entering the school cafeteria, they have not seen each other for thirteen years. They have gathered at the initiative of one of them, Lasha Tsitsishvili, nicknamed "Tsitsi" (Shako Mirianashvili). At a glance, the reason is completely harmless and logical - long-lost friends want to see and greet each other, have a drink, remember old times and simply spend a beautiful and nostalgic evening. Everything changes when an ominous black cloud looms over Guga (Giorgi Sharvashidze) - first with harmless "bites" and then with a direct confrontation. Will the class be able to finally convict the oppressor from school days and will the oppressor repent for the sins committed in the past? This is exactly what Davit Pirtskhalava seeks to answer in the film, "A Long Break" (2022), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and was later selected by the Georgian Film Academy for the “Oscars.”
The topic of oppression is not unknown to Georgian cinema. The previous story of this film is interesting: it was created as a play several years earlier, when it was created in collaboration with Temur Chkheidze's workshop and the Royal District Theater. The plot was exactly the same, but with a different cast. The author then transferred this story to the screen which turned out to be quite an interesting decision. The audience was able to observe the characters’ portraits up close, more “intimately,” especially “Tsitsi” ’s crazy restlessness, Guga’s tense, then sad and regretful features and the forgiveness left after the initial storm of revenge accumulated over the years in Pochkhua (Sandro Kalandadze).
The train of tension and “suspense” follows the film continuously - it begins from the very first shot, when “Tsitsi” attempts suicide and blood drips from the wound in his neck onto his chest (he moves the cross to his back so as not to soil it) and behind the shot, his father’s worried voice is heard - how can I help you, how can I save you, my son, tell me, and finally he calls the ambulance brigade. “Tsitsi” who is full of problems believes that his current misfortune comes from his school days and from one person in particular. This was Guga, the leader of the boys’ group in the class and the source of many conflicts, misunderstandings and unpleasant events in many cases. Although “Tsitsi” was his like-minded one then, in the present he has become his main and eternal enemy and is obsessed with the idea of meeting him, demanding answers for his past sins and, in the best case, even punishing him. For this very purpose, he calls the members of their group to a meeting - and only the boys, because this topic is “boys’ matter” in a manly way and the conflict should be resolved in the conflict zone itself, that is, at school. A long break, as the ideal time during school to resolve such matters, is also symbolically chosen for the title.
Traditional toasts will be accompanied by "Tsitsi"’s restlessness, the silent erosion going underground and the preparation for a big explosion. The general mood will be marked by awkward pauses and the shadow of accumulated questions and the past, which seems to be spinning in circles for a long time. Greetings to each other are gradually mixed with half-jokingly remembered "ejaculations" and slowly compromising information from the past is revealed - for the first half of the film, at a glance, our perception of decorous Guga (who is the wealthiest among his classmates) changes, since we learn so many unpleasant facts about him. The former leader seems to have been quite cruel, hard-hearted and merciless. However, at a later point, we also learn about the charitable profile of the former oppressor, when Guga's lover/wife (whose official status we don't even know) visits him and tries to take him home to avoid the unpleasantness caused by drinking and a potential attack. It is then that the boys, who are trying to please the woman, describe Guga as a hero, a noble and virtuous person: a cruel leader who they did not dare to refuse, also had good qualities - he knew how to help in times of difficulty and orphanhood.
The director tries to maximally expand the diversity of psycho-portraits and especially highlight the confrontation between the former offender and the current judge - whether through dramatic or visual means. Against this background, "subordinates" emerge, trying to neutralize the situation - "Chito" (Davit Chitaia) is the first to notice and call out "Tsitsi's" aggression towards Guga. The main duet - hero and anti-hero (or rather - both anti-heroes), Guga and "Tsitsi" are interesting antipodes of each other. "Tsitsi” 's tearful eyes do not leave Guga. The duo is completed into a triangle by Pochkhua, the one who caused the explosion. And this fateful night will bring the final verdict. The arrival of a young man in a wheelchair and the chain reaction lead to a physical confrontation between Guga and "Tsitsi," Guga's loss of consciousness as a result of the attack, and Pochkhua's judgment of his friends. It turns out that the former dancer was a victim of physical violence from Guga and the fraternity at the gathering, which tragically put an end to his dreams, and then a bullet shot took his legs off when he went to Iraq to earn a living. The phrase that one of the friends says is shocking: "You know, I wasn't at school that day... But if I had been, I would have brought you trouble too..."
The gathering ends without any victims - no one is beaten, no one is killed. Silent, wordless, and yet full of awkwardness, the director ends the film with a forgiveness - everyone returns to their lives at dawn, but it is clear that the next intersection will never happen again...
Davit Pirtskhalava has a refined eye for composition, and the artists Berdia Arabuli and Guram Navrozashvili help him in this. The night of the trial takes place in a naturally darkened environment. The only light is artificial lighting coming from outdoor lanterns, which reminds us of Caravaggio and, in general, the painting of the Baroque period and their characteristic lighting techniques.
The director manages not to stop us in comfortable places, and the ambient, ominous minimalist film music created by Nika Paniashvili well intensifies the plot. David Pirtskhalava does not forget the features of the theatrical stage and despite the minimal decorations, he sometimes offers us aesthetic and pictorial shots, observing the rules of complete artistic compositional balance: the duet of Guga and Pochkhia is interesting, the first is having an epileptic attack and is lying on the desks and the latter is in a wheelchair; the arrangement of the seven on the laid table, which reminds us of the composition of Leonardo da Vinci's "Last Supper" but instead of "one of you will betray me" there is the unspeakable "one of you has already betrayed us and must be punished for it." The painting of six children sitting at the table in the cafeteria, typical of the Soviet painting style, is symbolic, at first glance accompanied by a disintegrated and Soviet aesthetic. Finding melancholic beauty in anachronisms and recalling details familiar to the Georgian school space for maximum realism - a guardroom with a bed and lights, an interior in a state of repair, a corner of icons with sayings of great writers and figures, as well as walls full of their portraits. 13 years is interesting with the symbolism of the “unlucky number,” thirteen. The director touches on everything in small doses in the form of characters - the importance of religion in the lives of Georgians, current and always relevant social, gender problems. The main thing is still relationships and their representation in each character and connection.
The film is undoubtedly good, but it could have been better. Its “Achilles’ heel” is in the expected explosion, to which the entire meeting logically aspires. The untying of the knot is also logical, although unsatisfactory, to some extent. The same can be said about the opposite outcome - Guga's harsher punishment would have been as logical as it was unjustified. Pirtskhalava noted in an interview that this film was quite personal, he was in the position of the "oppressor:" "We all know that oppression is bad. I made a film about the life of the oppressor and the oppressed in the future." If we can identify the director himself with anyone, it is the character of the watchman for me, an elderly man who admits while drinking with the boys that he himself was an oppressor in his childhood and left alone, justifies himself with a whisper - what am I to blame, if a person deserves, he should be oppressed (by the way, the idea for this character was provided to Davit Pirtskhalava by the famous Georgian director Aleko Tsabadze).
One of the stranger features of Georgian cinema is that, as radical as it is, it often tries to find a “golden medium.” In addition to the fact that Davit Pirtskhalava’s characters are not like, for example, those of Quentin Tarantino, who will do anything for revenge, even if it takes years, revenge is not the final solution for Pirtskhalava. The main starting point for satisfying the ego and eliminating the problem, so to speak, does not allow “Tsitsi” to finally destroy Guga. Vice versa, when Guga is attacked, “Tsitsi” is the first to rush to his rescue (perhaps even thinking, “I won’t die until I revenge for my sins”) but still - forgiveness, as the greatest Christian nobility, overcomes temptation. The religious motif appears here too, and this is logical, because Georgian cinema has a great influence and reverence for Christian motifs, yet it loves to admonish and present a morally correct ending. This film is still like a personal confession-repentance, which leaves hope that a talented director with an interesting perspective and vision will be able to offer other, much more interesting works to the Georgian audience in the future.
Eter Parchukidze
