The goodness of Georgian documentary cinema and the deep vision of things and everything existing today are probably as much needed for modernity as hope. The hope not for a better future, but the fact that real life is born and grows only in the smallest, sincere seed of a dream.
Still under the conditions of Soviet ideology, Georgian documentary cinema covered various, unexpected areas of search and discovery, which determined its diverse topics. This legacy dictates a certain tradition with the works of Merab Kokochashvili, Guram Pataraia, Gela Kandelaki, Gogi Levashov-Tumanishvili, Guram Zhvania and many other documentarians. Georgian documentary and television film always developed on a different, deep feeling level. It may be less analytical or less consistent in many cases. However, this is not a defect, but its characteristic too. According to this tradition, the main merit of Georgian documentary cinema is always its unusually emotional vision. It sounds simple, but in a world where television documentary cognitive cinema, in search of other, more importantly, shocking facts of reality, has lost its main message and artistic integrity, in such a world, it is a virtue to maintain self-reliance.
The film, "Poisoned With Dust" (2018) by Tamar and Giorgi Bartaia is dedicated to the everyday life of the members of the Lagodekhi People’s Theater troupe and also to their main materialized dream – the theater, a place where, starting from the 90-year-old grandpa Zhora’s love for the theater, everyone has their own dream space. The most important thing is that this bright, delightful micro-space created by Tamar Bartaia breathes and exists independently of the author. It seems that the daily life of the troupe members is also unfolding, which is lost in the noise of the rain, in the flowerbed, and then, under the umbrella, each of them rushes towards the building that has been allocated for the theater... This building, being in not-so-good condition and the small-scale stage are actually a moving world, with its own dreams and hopes. The author of the film does not discuss these dreams or unrealized goals, nor does she limit the audience with public questions. We can just see in the general view the misty charm of the settlement, so dramatically changed in every season. After all, everything that the characters of the film tell us is a separate story, and the portraits in these stories are not only sharp, but also seem to acquire the characteristic, growing, generalized features of Luigi Pirandello's characters.
A dream world for grandpa Zhora and the young actor means participation in Shakespeare's great tragedy, dramaturgical perfection. However, none of them is the bearer of vain illusions, and that is why these characters are especially important for the author of the film. It is not the contrast, but the prosaism of existence that is attractive, with its unhurried, calm tone, the silence of the cultivated vegetable and greenery, where the author of the film does not even seem to need to emphasize the details – he is not looking for any wonder in the tireless hands of old grandpa Zhora or chasing the secrets of a life spent in his acting energy, which is a stamp of modern television documentaries, which has already become a trend. On the contrary, the author can see a different philosophical truth in this prose – being outside the theater, everyday work actually creates the extravagant nature of these people. Sometimes eyes gleam in a close-up, diligently painted in the illustrative diversity of the fairy tale, sometimes the directness of the actors gathered at the stove and the soft light of the day spread very naturally, completely effortlessly pleases the eye. The main question easily emerges from the actors’ room gathered for rehearsal: if everything that these people faithfully serve is a carrier of such pure love, then the main thing already exists and has been in their lives – something that is worth all day's work and pain. Tamar Bartaia turned the story and family life of each of them into separate novelistic inserts and thus connected these novels with a logical point – again with the love of theater. Puppet theater, which is one of the main activities of this troupe, creates a completely unique space in people's lives: children, village or town squares, artists gathered together, and dance and song. Rarely, but still, the author of the film comes across a slightly sad look, although this is also a naturally born human feeling in her narration, and the episodes arranged according to the seasonal time are full of this feeling.
A troupe member who went to work in Greece comes back and he will play in a Shakespeare play...
Grandpa Zhora will also play in "Hamlet"...
A young actor's dream will come true and it is him who might play the role of Hamlet...
In the ruins of an abandoned tobacco factory in the settlement, the actors and director are working on a new play... This is also an eccentric passage, full of the truly dignified life of these people and full of love for the theater.
When describing the tour in the building of the Movement Theater in Tbilisi, the author of the film sees so well the entire emotional mood of the people and artists moving in the space that this episode does not need a single verbal explanation or retort. "Those who are poisoned with dust" do not speak much at all – they simply and easily talk to the audience.
"I can't imagine anything without theater...," "I would play a serious role," "a foxy...", "wolf", "we are getting ready...", "my vegetable garden"..., all these are from fragments of life separately or brought together creates a picture of one life, complete and full of good wishes. The characters of film have several and finally one self-portrait. Nothing the filmmakers see is used for emphasis, since the audience's attention seems to be rightly directed to the main question – if it is not harmony and the world that people want, then everything has been an illusion.
The Lagodekhi People's Theater is a small model of these dreams and desires, it might need a lot, even for technical and material provision, but its unhurriedly narrated story tells the main thing: in the best tradition of Georgian documentary cinema, it is not to exaggerate the existing, but to recognize it again and again, or rather, recognize the essence of its real poetry or prose! Recognizing the lives of the members of the theater troupe in the traces of the garden and vegetable garden, in simple clothes, dancing and playing, in the happy smiling faces of the audience and in the heart-rending view of the morning settlement, leads us to the measure of the truth – after all, eternity is the love of art.
Ketevan Trapaidze
