No matter how many conditions of dramatic unexpectedness there are, no matter how many times we try to introduce an incredible twist in the usual, narrative rhythm of cinema, it will still be a reaction every time, depending on the meaning of the content of what happened, and not just a desire to ask the question "What happened?"... However, this question is the very first thing that embodies the reaction of the audience who is surprised and traumatized with unexpectedness.
"10:45" (2021) – this is the title of Giorgi Gogichaishvili's short film, the main interest in which is caused by the content basis of its dramaturgical sequence and unexpectedness (which is clearly visible and readable in the condition of its own development). At first, we remember one of the traditions of the history of Georgian cinema, the most important examples of dramaturgical original vision. For example, in the conditions of Georgian cinema fable, especially when not only the direction of the trend, thematic interests, but also the attitude of individuals – authors to subjects and events are changing. Despite such a prerequisite, dramaturgy still remains the most important basis for the development of Georgian cinema, for which every new example can be used as the beginning of a new sharp thought.
How easy it will be to get a variety of cinematic narration to the dramaturgy will be after a few years or decades, but the fact is that Georgian cinema, which is always able to perceive events and real dramatic facts from different perspectives, cannot remain true beyond the border of reality at any stage of its social or historical life. Today, Georgian cinema does not have a similar trend of artistic interpretation of events, and this is a good thing at this stage, because it is the intense artistic examples of individualism that create an adequate artistic image of historical reality in the transitional decades from one state to another.
However, this is a theoretical part of the question, which is created by the dramaturgy of Giorgi Gogichaishvili's short film, full of easy solutions and ambiguities, which are characteristic of Georgian cinema, especially in the "Age of Thaw."
A young girl is talking to a friend on the phone about traveling in a slightly contrasted artistic space and mundane, simple problems (the hiccups that started yesterday). Just when she gets over her main fear, her friend's lie about cancer, which helps with this minor problem (hiccup), she becomes a victim of bombing. We only get to know about this in the finale, where the credits are replaced by the tragic footage of the bombing of Gori (Georgia), and just as inadequately interrupting the credits, as so many lives are cut off, die, disappear and are mutilated by inhuman hatred and the insatiable thirst for war, as well as many other reasons.
The form itself, the model of this tragic story, is very interesting. The narrative is based on the evaluation of one actor and his logic, based on the principle of a dialogue on one phone call, which by itself cannot be a carrier of a new or unused plot from the beginning to the end, although this was not a requirement for the author, since the very reason, initial and plot justification for all this is in the historical tragedy of this fatal horror.
The young heroine of the film (Mariam Kvitaishvili) seems to have been thought of by both the film director and the cameraman as a character with slightly unending artistic features, since in the content of one entire, montage moving frame, no sharp, maximally subjective details can be read, such as, for example, the artistic resource use in an even more realistic direction. There are episodes of desperate water drinking in hopes of stopping the hiccups or even endless and somewhat violent explanations of travel plans that really don't require such long pedaling. On the contrary, with each new turn, in relation to this topic, the viewer loses the main line of believability and starts moving towards the original story origin, which, unfortunately, is undoubtedly a good, correct, important idea, but the sense of moderation in the detailing of the existence is lost. Is it the fault of the lack of acting expression or the attitude which, while revealing the recognizable details of the heroine's character in a short film, forgets the main one and not the secondary ones. For example, even if it is enough that dancing, drinking water, a reaction expressing despair, a weak body sitting against the wall in the form of an exhausted body, or the main character crying – all of this suddenly becomes less convincing with an indifferent intonation in the hero's lines. Perhaps this is what the director was aiming for, emphasizing the importance of tragic events and unexpectedness, but in a character interestingly created by one actor, unfortunately, the quality of feeling is often lost, and this continues until the finale, where the unexpectedness and its tragic, logical explanation arouse interest in its simplicity. Even in enriching the fact with documentary material with simplicity and moderation.
The fact that the main character can be generalized is beyond doubt, just as the artistic boundaries of this generalization can be endlessly extended by social, worldview, mental or physical characteristics. The part of the director's concept is even more interesting, where the author has presented the period before the tragic life explosion, interrupted in a second, as some general, fascinating unified form of phobias, love of travel, rules of being and relationships.
In sharpness and light, this figure walking in the interior is slightly infantile and half-unconsciously impulsive, however, she is unable to fully accumulate these very interesting qualities with artistic modesty, which should be possible when overcoming logical turns in the plot.
"10:45" -this adequate adaptation of many lives ended simply and tragically, is interesting in its dramatic form and content, in the general form of conventionality, in the possibility of using a short-length format. No matter how many times cinema returns to the history of tragedy, it will probably create a new model each time, from its immeasurably greater horrors. And the simpler the image of war, the more apparent is the message that comes from it.
Ketevan Trapaidze
