Glen Hirshberg's Blog - Posts Tagged "since-otar-left"
Movie Review: Since Otar Left
T.R.U.E. (Tuesday Round-up of Everything), Week of 7/8, Post #1:
Since Otar Left
In old Tblisi in Georgia, where water gives out mid-shower and the roads gape with potholes and what passes for the middle class live amid--and, when need be, sell off--the scant personal treasures (such as the library of French books) horded and hidden during Soviet times, a mother and daughter huddle in a small apartment and care for an aging grandmother. The grandmother lives mostly for letters or calls from her son Otar, a doctor who has long since emigrated to Paris, where he can only find construction work. One day, word comes that Otar has died in a construction accident. Fearing for the matriarch, the mother and daughter commence faking Otar's letters, so that the grandmother won't have to hear the truth.
That's pretty much the plot (although, for such a quiet film, it moves briskly, with the moments of potential discovery coming with alarming frequency). And though there are memorable images galore--the grandmother smoking alone in a rusting Ferris wheel gondola high above the city; the self-possessed, intellectual daughter coming home from an outing with the mother to find empty shelves where her father's books had been, all her life; the market in the crumbling city square where the mother and her longtime friend lay out the same wares for the same passersby, every single day; a glamorless, still-gorgeous Paris in summer rain--the lighting and the camera work stay determinedly humble, almost rickety. What's wonderful, charming, amazing about this film is these people. They reflect, subtly and brilliantly, the attitudes and prejudices and assumptions of their respective generations, but they're not allegories, and they're not incapable of change. The family they've created together is a loving one, and full of fractures. Their decisions are wrong, hurtful, and make perfect sense, every one.
And the ending...I can't really say. Don't want to give it away. But this is one of those endings--again, handled so quietly and deftly, it's almost as though nothing was occurring at all--that transforms everything that came before it. Makes you realize you were watching an entirely different beautiful movie than the one you thought you were watching. Comes as a shock. Makes total sense. Breaks your heart right where your heart loves to be broken.
Magical.
Since Otar Left
In old Tblisi in Georgia, where water gives out mid-shower and the roads gape with potholes and what passes for the middle class live amid--and, when need be, sell off--the scant personal treasures (such as the library of French books) horded and hidden during Soviet times, a mother and daughter huddle in a small apartment and care for an aging grandmother. The grandmother lives mostly for letters or calls from her son Otar, a doctor who has long since emigrated to Paris, where he can only find construction work. One day, word comes that Otar has died in a construction accident. Fearing for the matriarch, the mother and daughter commence faking Otar's letters, so that the grandmother won't have to hear the truth.
That's pretty much the plot (although, for such a quiet film, it moves briskly, with the moments of potential discovery coming with alarming frequency). And though there are memorable images galore--the grandmother smoking alone in a rusting Ferris wheel gondola high above the city; the self-possessed, intellectual daughter coming home from an outing with the mother to find empty shelves where her father's books had been, all her life; the market in the crumbling city square where the mother and her longtime friend lay out the same wares for the same passersby, every single day; a glamorless, still-gorgeous Paris in summer rain--the lighting and the camera work stay determinedly humble, almost rickety. What's wonderful, charming, amazing about this film is these people. They reflect, subtly and brilliantly, the attitudes and prejudices and assumptions of their respective generations, but they're not allegories, and they're not incapable of change. The family they've created together is a loving one, and full of fractures. Their decisions are wrong, hurtful, and make perfect sense, every one.
And the ending...I can't really say. Don't want to give it away. But this is one of those endings--again, handled so quietly and deftly, it's almost as though nothing was occurring at all--that transforms everything that came before it. Makes you realize you were watching an entirely different beautiful movie than the one you thought you were watching. Comes as a shock. Makes total sense. Breaks your heart right where your heart loves to be broken.
Magical.
