Cinema loves cities where either nothing happens or everything happens. For the French, Paris has always been like that. For American cinema, one of these is New York, and for modern Georgian cinema of the recent period, Chiatura has become such a source of inspiration, a town where the rich should live, although it resembles Orwell's world.
Chiatura is as inexhaustible as its ore with its topics and problems, which is why directors try to find important, interesting stories to tell from so many "precious stones." This historical town came under the attention of French-Canadian director Toby Andris. For him, as for everyone, social problems became a source of inspiration. The inadequate financial compensation of workers and employees working in the mine, the lack of safety standards, etc. He paid tribute to the miners with this short film "Chiatura" (2021).
The action of the film takes place in the recent past, when miners went on strike because of a employee who had passed away but they managed to negotiate with their employers and continued working. Only one person, the cable car driver, Eliso, disagrees with all this. The dead miner was her husband, so she continues to strike in a more severe form, now with a hunting rifle left by her husband.
In art, it is always interesting to describe a social or political event when the author is a representative of another country. The reason is an objective view. In this particular work, it is also clear that the director was simply not interested in this story and took to heart the hardships that miners experience in the working environment. The author does not talk much about Eliso’s character. For him, she does not seem to be the “voice of the people” (as we might encounter in Ken Loach’s films). In his opinion, this person, like her husband, is a victim not only of the system, but also of nihilism. This, above all, is the main problem of the film. We can see all this even in a very simple shot of workers playing dominoes, when in one of the scenes, Eliso stops the cable car and causes a collapse. Everyone from the crowd gathered there are worried not only about the main character's plight, but their job, until the gun fires, which is why the police take her away.
The husband's friends, employees... people who would stand by the woman are nowhere to be seen, except for one, Nino, who was loyal to the end and even took revenge on her friend at the end of the film. She stops the bosses sitting in the cable car halfway. This would be the most she could have done.
For a foreign director, the film can be recognized as a real "success" as a completed project, but how sophisticated or accurate is this "product" regarding the topic? It is not, because everything in this film is fake. The first signs of fakery are felt in the dialogues, when the characters speak in an overly fluent and sophisticated Georgian language. Added to this are the translated versions of "Hollywood" type texts, which absolutely do not suit the language and aesthetics. All this also creates a problem with the principle of character development. Eliso is too dramatic, as if she was created according to the type of “Otar’s Widow,” although actress Darejan Kharshiladze’s very good acting is worth noting, since she gave more lightness and naturalness to Eliso’s character.
The cameraman Ludvik Pruszkovski is a true professional in his field. He understood the aesthetics of those old buildings of Chiatura, built during the Soviet era, and created real harmony in the film with his panoramic shots and mise-en-scènes, although none of this was artistic, it was simply the work of a very high-level “craftsman.” The footage he shot in a beautiful documentary style and later interestingly montaged by the editor did not provide any benefit during the course of the film. On the contrary, it even threw the work out of rhythm. He caught that symphony of superficial chaos and failed to grasp what was hidden in this ghetto-like environment.
The director himself tries to raise workers’ problem to an international level. For him, Chiatura is simply a symbol, a metaphor for the world working class, but he forgets the historical and, one might say, mental concept of “homo sovieticus” with which most Georgian employers are poisoned. His understanding turned out to be very superficial but all attempts to show the tragedy of the working class are sincere.
He is also sincere in that “childish” moment when, at the end of the film, Eliso’s friend and colleague Nino, who was appointed as the cable car driver in her place, stops the transport in the middle of the road and leaves it hanging over Chiatura. This decision is a small heart-rending gesture, which is a kind of candy given to the audience in order to somehow embellish that hopelessness. In the end, the characters’ fate would be clear to everyone but there is a different feeling when, after watching the film, the viewer will think, “oh, that would serve them right!” This small spark evokes the fighting spirit and revolutions that the working class went through in other films, although the film’s author interrupts the film here.
Georgians have already made many documentaries and feature films on this subject. Much better than this, although it was clear that this film, seen through the eyes of a foreigner, was interesting in its message and position. We should also recall Rati Oneli’s film “City of the Sun” (2017), in which the author not only talks to us about the city and its ore but also paints portraits of the people living there. Considering the style and running time, it would be unfair to compare these two films although based on the topic, it can still be said that Toby Andris was unable to use the topic of Chiatura in a short film despite his great efforts. For him, life there became a reason to create a psychological drama film in which he would also voice a socio-political topic. But all this happened in such a way that the director does not appear in this aspect and does not want to express any opinion. The problem is only the working class form him, among whom characters like Eliso, an angry widowed machinist, for whom nothing makes sense anymore, except revenge, are mixed, which is why the film is accompanied by theatrical tragedy and a little uncertainty because what is important to him is the woman who lost her husband in the line of duty and not the entire problem of the miners. The director wants to give the widowed character a voice, although, unfortunately, it is not even a whisper.
The problem of Chiatura is not unique in the world, although with its history, aesthetics and environment, everything becomes exotic in this town, which is why the work of a group of high-level professionals turned out to be so weak. They wanted to put it in a simple American style framework but they could not determine the depth of the topic, which destroys these frameworks.
Saba Makharashvili
