Khatuna Vashadze's debut film, "Bullet" (2022) is quite eloquent and memorable, which leaves the audience with something to think about. It shows a cruel world where one unintentional action can destroy an entire life. When a little boy on a picnic is hit by a blind bullet, a happy family life is destroyed, a once ideal existence turns into torture. The father is trying to somehow save the family, the mother is mourning, the police are powerless, there are no witnesses, there is nothing to do, and the case is closed in a few months. The father will have to find out everything himself, with his own abilities and funds.
Creating a film on such a topic is a great responsibility for those for whom this tragedy is real. There are thousands of people in the world who are mourning the death of a child. If this work had come out even a little fake, less tragic than necessary, it would have been a mockery of such people. After all, they watched the film and thought that their tragedy is a reason to make money for someone.
The plot is simple, uncomplicated, without unexpected turns and intrigues, although all this would be completely unnecessary for this film, because it has the main sincerity and a strong dramatic basis that forces the audience to live with the characters for an hour and a half, to feel their pain. It seems to be based on real events, you can watch and experience it in one breath.
Everyone dies eventually – some die of old age, some die of illness, and when a small child dies so suddenly, accidentally and absurdly, it's very painful. Dealing with such a loss is very difficult, especially when no one has been held accountable for the crime. Pain is added to pain. Everything is filled with melancholy, hopelessness and indifference. Will the pain ever subside? no never.
In two months, the mother, weakened by suffering, flew to her angel son. It is difficult for the father, who is completely alone at this time, to maintain his dignity and adequately punish the offender, when the only reason for breathing is revenge.
A heinous tragedy has taken ground from the main character’s feet, so it is logical that the father would want to avenge his son’s death by murdering, but whose life does it make easier? Revenge runs deeper into the human soul. It won't bring back the one you lost, on the contrary it will make you lose those around you too, revenge makes you look like a criminal and slowly drags you down the swamp. In this chaos, it is strength to keep your dignity and think adequately. After watching the film, many viewers will ask themselves the question, how would I act? Would I kill? And everyone will have a different answer to this because no one can understand pain unless they have lost a loved one.
The first part of the film before the tragedy is rich in bright colours. Mainly, pink and green colours are used, with the approach of disaster, red slowly enters, which causes anxious feelings in the viewer, feeling of an imminent tragedy does not leave you. The rest of the entire film is in shades of gray, except for the finale, where red and green alternate again.
The tragedy episode is especially noteworthy. Shown is the result, not its cause. Everything happens suddenly, the focus is on the characters’ faces and emotions. The mother’s (Nino Lezhava) face, who realizes that she has just lost her child is heartbreaking. Her performance is hard to watch, she has expressed every possible emotion without the slightest exaggeration. It is impossible to imagine another actress in her place, as if the role was written for her. The father’s (Giorgi Megrelishvili) terrifying voice will be heard long after the end of the film, he is the image of a hero you don't envy, you don't want to imitate, but you want to be his friend to comfort him and drive him away from loneliness. In one shot, both actors show how much their characters have changed within minutes.
Zaza Magalashvili’s hero, Davit Likokeli, expresses his regret and mental pain with full precision. His character becomes a kind of hostage to an already difficult situation. As if fate itself decided to play a cruel joke on him. In a flashback, we learn that the stray bullet in his life became familiar for him when still a child, while hunting with his father, his gun accidentally went off and killed his father. This is a key episode for the film. He is very honest. So much that one never doubts the correctness of his action, he does not hide his pain, he accepts the loss as a burden to which he must bravely bare responsibility.
Films about how difficult it is to lose a loved one, restore justice and maintain dignity in the background, if well made, always evoke a sea of emotion and leave a certain mark in the audience. "Bullet" tries to be one of those works. In the background of the tragedy, endless sadness, unbearable pain, anger, despair, contempt for everything, losing the meaning of one's life are shown, and all this is the path to self-destruction, where one should find strength and forgive those who cannot be forgiven. Khatuna Vashadze's film allows us to think about this.
In most of such works, similar stories are told one-sidedly, and here the audience sympathizes with both sides equally. You can't judge the culprit by emotions alone, because things can turn out to be much more complicated. Who should be punished for a bullet that misses the target? David, who was presented a weapon or Tazo, who bought a weapon? After all, when they tested the gift, they had no idea if someone was in the forest. Moreover, they did not know that their involuntary action would result in the death of a small child. or both? If one didn't buy it and the other didn't want to test it, the tragedy wouldn't have happened. It is difficult to find justice in this difficult situation, although someone must be punished to restore balance, so that the father's soul can find peace. In order for the heroes of Tazo and David not to live in a constant pang of conscience, decent behaviour is needed. This dignity, fortunately, was found for all three of them and they left it to fate to restore justice.
When you realize that any of us could find ourselves in a similar situation, the story becomes even more horrifying. A careless action can get everyone in trouble, we must remember that guns are not toys and a small bullet can cause a lot of trouble.
The film was shot without any directorial tricks. You won't find stunning visuals, sound effects or impressive scenery here. Neither the main nor the secondary characters are clearly defined, just as there are no good and bad.
Dialogues are weak. One might think that this was done on purpose so that the viewer's attention would be focused only on emotions, but this detail had a negative effect. Meaningful dialogues would make the work more harmonious.
In the final scene, the acting skills of all three characters are nice to see. The small details played an important role, and the close-ups made it all the more visible. Giorgi Megrelishvili’s tired, wet eyes, Zaza Maghalashvili’s features swollen from tiredness and Giorgi Aznauri’s nervously trembling lips on which the attention is carefully focused. This made the final scene memorable.
In such low-budget films, acting skills are important. It's a pity that we can't rate the performance of all the actors in this movie at a high level, with one exception. These roles, in many cases, are either exaggerated or not fully developed, which makes their characters less believable and, so are the episodes they play.
The ending of the film is correct and refined, emotionally restrained, but at the same time, as honest as possible, although its interpretation is better left to the viewer because it gives quite many options.
"Bullet" is about neither right nor wrong, everything depended on a chance. All the characters go through the tragedy that burns them inside. This is a good social message about unintentional crime.
Teona Vekua
