Emptiness, the feeling that comes with pain and loneliness after the departure of a loved one. This feeling cannot go away. Neither friends nor others can replace parents. After they are gone, life becomes different, colorless, and there are no new blank pages to start all over again.
When you stay alone, pains surround you, you leave your body and look at yourself from the outside. You realize that you are in chaos, there is obscurity around you and there is no way out of it. You have only two choices: to fill the void around you or to continue your life in loneliness, devoid of emotions. It takes a lot of effort to fill the void, there is still an unfilled place somewhere. People come only to leave again, everyone is replaceable except the parent.
The main topic of Margo Zubashvili's film "Dinosaur" (2014) is sensitive for everyone. Audiences won't start crying because the movie is good enough for their tears but because everyone remembers their lost parent. The main character, Nino, returns home after her mother's funeral. Things are scattered around, mirrors are covered with white sheets, and the old house still smells of death. This smell seems to be trying to continue living with Nino.
Nino listens to her friends’ conversation in the kitchen, but her mind is elsewhere. Her body was stuck between being and non-being. Thoughts seem to have a desire to escape from reality. When her friends leave, she stays at home alone and starts moving things. She grabs the cupboard and tries to move it. The cupboard in the room is like a burden full of pain that Nino felt after her mother left. Now she will have to carry this heavy burden on her back for the rest of her life. The woman opened the cupboard and locked all the emotions that caused sadness in it.
After the doctors showed up, it felt like time went backwards. Lily, Nino's mother, was actually alive, and her death seemed like a warning that parents needed more attention, but it didn't. It is a pity since this would probably be the director's best idea. Nino looks sadly at Lily's medicine box, takes a deep breath and tries to hold the air in her lungs. All the things in the house are messy, just like the thoughts in the woman's mind. What's the point now? How to live friends will not always be by her side.
At the end of the film, the images are arranged together like a collage. It is not difficult to understand what the director wanted to say. There are simply extra things for this film. For example, the dialogue in the kitchen has nothing to do with its topic, and it seems It has fallen out of the main speed. The director could have shown Nino's distraction differently.
The dialogue between the friends might be an allegory of Dante Alighieri's “Divine Comedy,” where Dante begins his journey from Hell to Heaven. It is difficult to say whether Lily went to heaven or whether there is hell and heaven at all? Nino herself gets lost in Dante's desolate forest. "In the dark woods, half way through this life, I woke up as a lost person." The dark woods in the “Divine Comedy” is the place where Dante gets lost in the middle of his life, and it symbolizes the difficulties of worldly life.
It is unclear who the woman in the opening shot is, as well as where Nino's father is. It is also unknown who Nino is. The story began with the fact that the woman died, and perhaps the director thought that this would be enough. However, this is not the case.
The house is empty not because there are no things in it, but because there is only one person left to live there, and she is so alone that the walls of the room can no longer find room for her feeling. Everything around was surrounded by loneliness, even the streets were empty. Only darkness was everywhere.
"The dinosaurs became extinct" is the only phrase that came to mind when I heard the name of the film. Why is the film called Dinosaur? What significance does it have for the director? All this, unfortunately, is unclear, but leaves one rough association – everyone will become extinct. Years from now, some people will no longer exist, races will change, and things will obviously be different.
What is missing from a film in order to be called a composite work? A thought. The director should have thought more about the details and not limited herself to just one location. This plot is not so smooth for the action to take place only in one house. It is a pity that there is no interview of the director about her film and the questions remain unanswered. The audience is left to make their own interpretation of the story. "Dinosaur" is like a competition film, the main topic of which was given, and the director should not have gone beyond these frameworks. The film is distinguished neither by the story nor by the variety of shooting locations. It's another low-budget film, and moreover, it doesn't add anything to Georgian cinema. It's another one-time watch movie that, if you only accidentally switch to it, it's like a director's test film, which they make to try their hand at cinema.
Nino's future is uncertain. No one knows if she has relatives, sister or brother, father, only her friends appear in the shots. It is not known whether she should continue to live alone or not. The film is one big labyrinth of information crisis that has no way out. The old house is probably where Nino grew up. She will probably sell the house now and leave all her emotions to it. Nino, despite her friend's advice, does not sleep. The fear of death might take hold. Nothing is visible in the film. Did Lily fall asleep and could not wake up? How did she pass away? Nothing has been answered. A result is given which has neither beginning nor development.
The film has no introduction, everything starts directly with the conflict, with the main topic – Lily died. Dressed in black, Nino remains alone and does not know how to continue with her life. She has a heavy emotional background, but it is not visible in the shots. It is also unclear how the woman is going to continue her life. Lily was often sick and Nino was somewhat prepared for all this. Despite the pain, she is calm. It's as if her mind has no grasp of reality. She sits down and starts playing on her laptop. Why didn't she leave her friends at home? She might have wanted to deal with everything alone. It's a pity that she refused emotional support. In general, people are often characterized by such things. When something happens, they don't start talking about it and they block all the sensations in their mind and body and then they collapse.
The director shoots only women. This might be a justified trick in her other films but this film clearly lacks a father. Where is Nino's father and why is he not with her on the day of her mother's funeral? What parent would put their child through so much pain? Is father already dead? Or perhaps Lily was an abandoned woman who raised Nino alone? Or why does not the director accept men, did they disappoint her? Is loneliness a heavy burden for all women? Unanswered questions are interesting as well as regrettable. There is a lot of empty space in the mind and the film is not enough to fill it.
Barbare Kalaijishvili
