Reviews

Hard for outsiders to "decode" this film as there seem to be so many layers of irony and camp. From what I can make out it"s some kind of satire on French champagne socialists who are inclined to a indulge in purificatory self-loathing as a way to justify themselves, a fact that doesn't make them any less loathsome and won't spare them from the Zemmours of this world and from any real communists, should the species ever tread the planet again. Everyone comes off looking phony and unlikeable in this film, from the pampered, hyper-sexualized rich kids with their hare brained scheme, the clueless, conformist dad, or Lady Bountiful mother who descends on Muslim Africa in her "crusade". The film begins well enough with a quirky family crisis shot in an edgy cinema veritè style but soon the Garrel's craftsmanship can't cover the absence of afflatus and the plot descends into a series of boring, pointless, insincere tableaux, while its manufactured, "simulacrum" of a social critique just leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

Fatherland is a slick political short about what Georgians (at least some) feel about a local boy who made good. Joseph Vissarionovich Jughashvili, better known to the world as Stalin, was probably the most powerful and feared world leader of the twentieth century. Non-Georgians will probably need a good deal of context in order to "decode" what this film is getting at, as it also seems to be an ironic commentary on current events. My only gripe here is: couldn't they have found an actor who looks a little more like the real "Vozhd"? In Tbilisi you see men every day in the street or on the subway who are dead ringers for Stalin, men like the legendary Mikhael Gelovani who played the dictator in a number of films in the 1930s and 40s and was actually prohibited from accepting any other roles. Apart from that, the film is a thoughtful, extremely well-crafted and poignant jab at anti-democratic tendencies in Georgian society. 8 out of 10.

A Pig by Giga Kiklivadze is an amiable Georgian feature shot on a shoestring budget that riffs on the theme of the "stupid" crook. Here the protagonists are a couple of slightly goofy, foul mouthed losers (they steal railway ties at night) who "accidentally" kidnap hapless Bachana, after he wanders into their backyard by mistake. To raise the ransom money of 300 GEL ($100) Bachana's dad will have to sell a pig at the local market while his son waits chained to a large cooking pot in ramshackle kitchen somewhere in backwoods Georgia. It's a chilling premise that has all the potential for a grim ending, but the audience soon realizes our "dumb and dumber" perps aren't really bad guys and they soon begin laughing at their inane curses and mannerisms. The director's wry, deadpan style brings out the absurdity of the situation. The film won the Human Rights prize at the Tbilisi International Festival - probably because it shows how down-at-the-heels much of Georgia still is.