Georgian film "Blind Dates" directed by Levan Koguashvili, 2013. I cannot say that I am delighted, but the film is not bad, recalls the Georgian films of the first films of Otar Ioseliani. I liked this movie better than his previous film, "Trubbers." A little, as it seemed to me, the director overdoes, showing the life of his heroes - he is very gray and unsightly, bright colors practically do not appear in the frame, only at the end one heroine puts on an orange jumper, which looks like a symbol of her liberation, or what (from all men). This is the story of two 40-year-old bachelors, unsuccessfully trying to arrange their personal lives, being rather unsuccessful and absolutely moneyless, both work at school - Sandro as a history teacher, his friend Iva - coach of the women's football team. Only the presence of this sign of time (women's football) suggests that the action is taking place these days. In the end, the main character Sandro meets, almost for a moment, his love and it seems even mutual, but life circumstances again develop not in favor of the characters. However, despite all this hopeless grayness, there is no sense of hopelessness in the end.
Wonderful, subtle, bright, lyrical film about loneliness, love and Georgia.
Loneliness is now an increasingly common theme in cinema when it comes to modern life. If in historical cinema the main theme is survival, then in modern cinema it is the search for happiness, the search for oneself, the search for one’s own. It is understandable when the question of survival has disappeared. And although loneliness is a universal and universal concept, in each country it has its own face and features: in Finland one thing, in Turkey a little different, in some huge metropolis its own special, well, in Georgia. . .
And in Georgia, there is Sandro, a history teacher, who is 40 years old and still lives with his parents. What in the head of this fastidious bachelor no one understands, but in love he is not lucky. With women he meets on dating sites, brings them to hotel rooms, coupled with his good friend, but these meetings blindly do not make anyone happy. So one day after another, sad days pass.
And yet Sandro meets his love.
It is amazing how boring, gray and unattractive he seems at the beginning of the film next to other souls, and how beautiful, strong and touching he suddenly becomes when he meets his own. Just the one next to whom he feels good.
But if it were that simple, people wouldn’t write novels, write songs, or make movies. You want what you want, and you get what you get. Life, as always, has set an ambush. Apparently, so people don't get bored. Or to get to know themselves. That's what life is like.
But Sandro says yes to every offer, every challenge, when it comes to his newfound sense, and these little yess open up a chain of events for him, and for the viewer, a journey through Tbilisi, his inside side, unvarnished, authentic, where the past meets the present. .
The performance of the actors is beyond praise. And the camera work is just amazing. The footage seems to be filled with air, and it seems that we are beginning to distinguish smells. The film can be stopped at any second, and admire the shot, as we admire the picture in the museum.
And sometimes the director stimulates our imagination, as in the scene where the hero describes a blind girl a view from the window of old Tbilisi and we are not shown this view. We, like a blind girl, must imagine it.
From such delicate moments, the whole film is woven.
Slowly and thoughtfully, I drink it to the bottom, enjoying every sip. I don’t even know how the end is coming.
This old city, overgrown with human bustle, sleeps in the arms of wind and rain, and awakens with the radiant sun from the mountain peaks. Quarters of Soviet times and shabby walls of apartments, soaked in cold and loneliness, reflect a kind of catatonia of people who have forgotten how to swim with the flow of life and broke out of the urban rhythm. Forty-year-old teacher Sandro is not lucky in love - his parents dream of a good daughter-in-law and grandchildren, and he still leads a bachelor lifestyle, trying to prolong his youth, like his friend Iva. Together they find companions on dating sites and assign them dates. But meetings take place without any spark or romance, even when couples go to the beds of cheap hotels, where they sit modestly and talk about nothing or awkwardly keep silent, as if some mechanism has broken in people that cannot be repaired. However, after another unsuccessful date, Sandro meets the charming Manana and falls in love with her. But she is married, and her husband is released from prison on parole. By an ironic coincidence, their paths cross and all three go together on a small trip on the back of the city.
Smooth and overcast urban areas. Infinitely gray everyday life and wandering souls in the circle of loneliness. This Tbilisi depicts Levan Koguashvili – without “tourist” panoramas and capital gloss, and emasculated and simple, to become the heroes of the film – the city, almost lost its “tbil”-warmth, which is felt in the conflict of generations and “cold”, almost dispassionate atmosphere. Some worry about others and teach life, and they live in their own way, forgetting about love, because they are more used to loneliness. As if reborn, Sandro and Manana learn to feel and love again – silently, timidly, platonicly. They embrace each other, fearful of dispersing this fragile, fragile thing that has formed between them. Wandering through the streets of the city, the heroes, like grown children, seek understanding, compassion, sympathy; look for a way out of the impasse into which they have driven themselves; look for themselves in others to hide in a safe haven. They wander through the labyrinths of the soul, but each time they return back to where air barely penetrates the lungs, and the space between the walls narrows with diaphragmatic movement. From here you want to run, release the bitterness with cigarette smoke or leave traces of inner emptiness on the coastal sand. But they cannot disappear forever, since they are only those petals from the sometimes-sounding sad Georgian song that only waver in the wind. And over time, they dry up with the arrival of a brooding and peaceful old lady in autumn.
But Koguashvili does not close his film in four dilapidated walls, except in the walls of the soul, and, oddly enough, in this cacophony of life catches a peculiar barely audible rhythm. Minute pleasures he finds in khachapuri and a bottle of chacha, in dance and football. And raindrops. His picture resembles a boat swaying on the waves; it has nowhere to swim, but it is also comfortable. People are blinded by loneliness, but they can still touch. You don’t need music to dance; you don’t need to see the city when you can hear it. And even waltz under this ceaseless noise coming from the hotel balcony, from where the city is in the palm of your hand. However, the director will not show any views of the old Tbilisi or the water of the Kura, he will better tell about them, because there it is terrible to get lost, lose yourself. In lonely places, on a boat swing or an autumn beach, people find their secluded corner with which to feel their unity; a tiny world that shelters them on a long journey. Here you can hear the beating of the city and time slowly stretches. Here you can dissolve in the arms of wind and rain. It's damp and gray. Grey walls. Gray sky. Grey sunset.
“Blind Dates” by Levan Koguashvili, first of all, a film about fate and how a person manages his life. This is a movie about love and, of course, about Georgia - warm, while everything is good and cool gray, when there is little joy in life.
The main character is a forty-year-old school teacher Sandro, who lives a boring bachelor life with his parents. With such a situation, he would not just resign himself, but also not particularly struggling - he is already used to it. It is as if he is watching his life from the outside, letting everything take its course. When circumstances force him to act, he does not think at all and chooses the simplest - conciliation. Sandro is not a desperate or lost person, because everything he does is sincere and kind, almost sacrificial, albeit mechanical.
Together with his inseparable friend, Sandro arranges a blind date with two provincial women, one of whom is ironically blind. A metaphorically blind encounter takes on a literal meaning.
Koguashvili conveys the general atmosphere of detachment and transparent closedness through the windows of cars and cramped apartments, curtains and curtains, doors and partitions, a locked balcony, which I really want to open. Central to the film is a translucent film, which the characters hide from the rain. In this memorable scene, the director seems to capture the entire Georgian life. Under the rain spray, they drink chacha, eat khachapuri and talk. This idyll is broken by a call from Sandro's father, reflecting the depth and strength of family values. From the tube, motifs of Georgian folk songs are heard, Sandro contemplates nature animated by the rain and is imbued with the beauty of the statue.
The film uses many enclosed spaces that create a sense of canned permanence. This stability even in the natural texture. All this helps in creating the image of the main character - an ossified person who has lost the color of life. Because of his own blindness, Sandro seems doomed to loneliness. It's like he's living under the same film where it's warm and dry, but sometimes it's wind and rain when someone gets up and leaves. The life shown on the screen is like a hotel room in which the characters spend their blind dates. In a simple, modest room is also very warm and dry, only the throat is dry and the balcony does not open, and “a view is needed”, a view is very necessary. In addition, you want some sun, fruit and dancing, albeit under the noise of the city. A blind life must be just as thin and fragile as an apple peel, peeled in complete darkness.
The film was shot and played quite restrained, in moderate and calm tones. Modest, kind Georgia is shown in the film from different sides: dilapidated, worn slums are replaced by colorful apartments of panel high-rise buildings. Even in the deserted, dirty suburbs there is something close and attractive. This is a very simple, in the best sense, movie, devoid of shine and excessive pathos. A movie that a simple person would like.
A quiet, calm picture of Levan Koguashvili came across me quite by chance, and the more pleasant it was for me to see it. I will say at once that the film is not typical from my point of view for Georgian cinema, since it was shot in arthouse style, but still something original, inherent in the Georgian mentality, is undoubtedly visible in this film. Firstly, it is an incredible beauty of music, the background accompanying the whole story and permeating you to the depths of your soul. Secondly, of course, the amazing landscapes of old Tbilisi, with its post-Soviet atmosphere, unpredictable architectural solutions and monolithic in every detail. Well, the scene by the sea on a deserted beach just amazed me. It just blows fresh sea air and after viewing so want to be on the shore of the cold autumn sea. The only thing I disagree with is the genre. In my opinion, “Blind Dates” can hardly be called an ordinary comedy, rather it is a deep drama, and fans to laugh at this formulation is likely to be misleading, but it is not for me to decide.
What is the film itself about?
I think of the endless loneliness that permeates through and sometimes captivates us for years to come. And also about the feelings that suddenly and forever change us and our reality, about life values, the question of choice, human strength and human weakness, love and finally about life itself. What did I like most about this picture? That there are no noisy restaurant gatherings with mass eating of dolma and sativi, but instead there are true emotions, not always loud, sometimes even too quiet, such that they must be listened to with closed eyes, but always real. As in life. I liked that the hero was so touching and indecisive and outwardly absolutely calm. I liked that instead of a banal happy ending, the viewer was offered a completely different ending, full of intriguing understatement. I loved the movie and, strangely enough, the title of the movie! "Blind Dates" is exactly what it is. As a result, a beautiful picture, full of life, romantic, a little monochrome, but no less from this bright, memorable, funny and sad, very instructive and must-see for everyone who is looking for something.
8 out of 10
Sandro, 40, is a teacher at the school. The salary is small, you have to live with elderly parents who endlessly pester him, controlling every step. They say that their son has not yet married. Sandro tries to fix the situation by dating a girl he meets online. But she's complicated. Sandro gets involved in a semi-criminal story. The husband of her friend, with whom he almost falls in love, is released from prison. His mistress is pregnant and he needs money to help her. To do this, he decides to turn one adventure, accidentally attracting Sandro almost as accomplices. Unexpectedly, for Sandro, this turns out to be a chance to find happiness, as for his friend, the same grievous bachelor.
“Blind Dates” is a wonderful work about loneliness, only now we see loneliness not in a giant metropolis where everyone is in a hurry, but in a much more modest Tbilisi. There is some charm in all these Soviet old buildings, which are only visible in a glimpse, in the possibility of holding a wake right in the yard, not in the restaurant, and in the fact that we do not see the scale of Tbilisi - the city, the location of its attractions is only "retelled" by Sandro's friend a blind girl with whom this friend also came on a date. Therefore, loneliness in such “sets” does not have the features of social hell, as in Asian cinema. Moreover, it even paints the same Sandro, making him awkward and cute.
It is impossible to predict how Blind Dates will develop. One thing is expected from the beginning of the film, and it ends in a completely unpredictable way. Sandro gets into a series of incomprehensible social clashes with a woman he likes, her husband-criminal, his relatives, mistress and is carried away in this whirlpool, where he behaves completely passively, having no strength and not wanting to influence events. Therefore, "Blind Dates" have a pleasant subtlety - both at the level of the psychology of the characters and at the level of the plot itself. It is also nice that there are absolutely no stamps of the Georgian mentality like feasts and wine drinking. The soft, pleasing narrative of Sandro's life evokes sympathy and memories of Georgia's semi-idyllic world.
8 out of 10
On the two sides of the coin and the infinite variety of their shades
A great film about modern Georgia. There is humor, and irony, and regret, and the expectation experienced by the characters of something desirable, but difficult to implement, which is definitely clearly conveyed when watching this tape. The bicycle is not invented. The most standard plot, shown in a highly original and individual author's handwriting.
Each medal has two sides. Light and dark. But so many shades. We do not always notice that we look at light colors and gloomy cloudy colors have faded into the background. And vice versa. You can see that in the movie. Sometimes we get into the most comedic situations. And sometimes we think - how different is the individual human life.
Georgia is not the largest country on the map. Not many films are made in it. It is a pity that the baggage of its modern film industry is understandably more modest than its Soviet period. Unfortunately, this is no better in Russia. From what is filmed now, there are few examples worthy of the level of this Georgian tape. Not even in the style of the narrative, but in the quality of the presentation of the material. I wish there was more of this movie.
Finally, two years later, the wonderful film Levan Koguashvili “Blind Dates” got to our cinemas. Cinemas have already managed to miss the Georgian hospitality and warm home atmosphere. “Blind Dates” is a real find, both for a person who understands little about the art of cinema, and for a real moviegoer. This film is incredibly philosophical, but at the same time open and natural. So, even if you do not fully understand what the main meaning of the picture is, how its content is related to the title, there will be no special trouble. “Blind Dates” is, first of all, a movie about beautiful Georgia, its beautiful traditions and beautiful residents who have to solve everyday problems.
The main character of the film is 40-year-old bachelor Sandro, who works as a school teacher and still lives with his parents. The 40-year milestone makes Sandro think about the future and start looking for his wife. However, Sandro’s attempts to find someone worthy are not crowned with success. Sandro is completely blind in love, and in life too. He does not have clearly set goals, he is quite satisfied with the measured, one-sided life that he leads. Everyday work, a house, a quiet dinner with his parents, entertainment is just a competition of the school women's football team, as well as long conversations with longtime friend Ila. Any attempts to find a worthy girl also fail, and this is due to the fact that Sandro blindly follows his feelings, not properly understanding them. It is impossible to create a lasting union with a girl you know only by communicating on the Internet, much less to connect your life with a married woman. Sandro’s parents absolutely do not understand his son, his iron calm about the near future. However, the heterogeneous views of “fathers and children” cannot coincide (after all, another upbringing, another history, another time). The aimlessness and passivity of Sandro’s life position is completely justified by the modern world he lives in. In a world where life comes to the fore in your own pleasure, and not the desire for sudden procreation. “You’re going to find a good woman,” Sandro says. And, indeed, no matter how old you are, while the sun of Georgia shines clearly, and the wonderful waters of the Kura beckon your eyes, you can easily stop somewhere in a hurry and start to admire the harmony of life.
Many critics have repeatedly stressed the landscape of this film. Gray post-Soviet Georgia makes an unforgettable impression on the viewer, driving him into nostalgic romanticism about the bright past of Soviet reality. Old worn furniture, cars of outdated models And this is how the capital of Georgia looks... However, the natural landscape completely changes the impression. Even in the November downpour, against the backdrop of beautiful mountains, Tbilisi looks unforgettable.
This film, first of all, should be watched by real romantics who have not lost faith in the fatalism of our world.
9 out of 10
The wonderful film Levan Koguashvili immerses the viewer in the unique atmosphere of new and old Tbilisi with all their charm, but sometimes not quite attractive inside out. Blind Dates can only be viewed for this reason. And the director also has a beautifully presented, although not very original in itself, the story of school teacher Sandro with very expressive and characteristic characters.
Koguashvili’s painting disproved my preconception that a good psychological drama cannot be filmed so contemplatively and detached. The director denies it almost in the first few minutes. Detachment sometimes balances on the verge of pseudo-documentary, in the style of which it has recently become fashionable to shoot horror films. Sometimes there was a feeling that the cameraman Tato Kotetishvili did not shoot a feature film, but simply for several days captured on film the life of a Georgian family and individual people. A similar experiment in a film drama was risky, but gave a good result. By the way, I do not quite understand why Blind Dates is positioned as a comedy, funny if there is, then in the minimum dose. To me, this is a drama in its purest form. Returning to the camera work, I also note the magnificently shot contemplative scenes with large and general plans of the heroes who managed to say a lot about them and reveal even the characters of the second and third planes, not to mention the main ones.
The film is pleasing with well-built capacious dialogues, in which we will not find a single unnecessary word. And in general, much more about the heroes say their movements, facial expressions, gestures, and words are often simply not needed.
Acting work in "Blind Dates" albeit do not hit the external effect, nevertheless magnificent all to one. Well coped with the difficult role of Sandro Andro Sakhvarelidze. His character is not talkative, but he was able to tell almost everything about himself, without resorting to lengthy phrases - gestures, facial expressions, and even more - with a look. Almost all of Sandro’s thoughts and experiences can be read in his eyes. A strong role worthy of praise.
The others didn't. Very good Iamze Sukhitashvili (Manana), Vakho Chachanidze (Tengo) and Archil Kikodze (Iva). Well, of course, it would be a crime not to say the warmest and kindest words to the master of the Georgian acting workshop Kakha Kavsadze, delighted with one of his appearance in the frame.
But still, as a result of emotionality tape Koguashvili a little lacked. At some point, she literally asked for the screen. I don’t know, perhaps the emotions were partially emasculated by the voiceover translation, which sounded somewhat dry, but still, in my opinion, the creators did not finalize it a little and accordingly the impressions of the tape were slightly blurred because of this. That, however, does not detract from the merits of the picture, which flows smoothly, slowly and manages to convey to the viewer important messages about decency, honesty, humanity, love, loyalty, patience, compassion and many more important thoughts.
I really enjoyed the film. A little more emotion, and everything would be perfect.
So here we go.
7 out of 10