Elguja Burduli

A fascinating storyteller captivates fellow passengers in a crowded train car, but conflicts slowly arise.Read More »

The director dedicated this lyrical, epic film-confession to the memory of his father who was a doctor. The film’s protagonist, an ambulance doctor, conducts dangerous experiments in search of a vitally important vaccine. His wife believes in his work, though his daughter would not understand him. His son, who is absolutely unlike his father in character, is trying to protect him. But self-denial in the name of science proves too high a price. Just when he is on the verge of discovery, the doctor loses everything he has gathered as a result of his twenty-year-long work. This loss brings him even closer to his son. The shooting of the film continued for seven years (1985-1992), making it a metaphorical culmination of the Soviet cinematography and the Soviet way of life as a whole.Read More »

Review from Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide by Ronald Bergan and Robyn Karney:
Three generations of a family – grandfather, father, grandson – are obsessed with swimming. This passion destroys the first two, while the middle-aged surviving member tries to keep it at bay.
Made in Georgia, this is an original piece of work, constructed as a film within a film, and shot asdistinct segments intercut with the activities of the crew which is supposed to be making it. Grandfather’s tale is photographed in sepia, intriguingly beautiful and lyrical; son’s episode is black and white, and redolent with the atmosphere of the postwar Stalinist period; grandson’s story takes place on the contemporary film set and is in colour. There is little dialogue, voice-over commentary being largely used, and it is difficult to appreciate why the film’s release was withheld for a few years. An interesting, often absorbing curiosity, that falls apart in the third segment.Read More »