Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Victor Khomenko (M) on April 27, 2006 at 06:12:48

Not exactly a household name in the US, the Georgian director is quite famous in movies circles.

Georgian cinema always brings something special to the screen - including its wonderful music, food, wine, beautiful people and subtle insightful art. Some people would probably recognize the name of Georgy Danelia, as perhaps the most known Georgian director, so here is your chance to get to know another great one.

The Four Films comes on two discs, and we saw the first one last night.

April is Ioseliani's early work, but it shows great master about to spread his wings. You can say it is straighforward in its message and slightly tedious in spots, but the artistic eye of the young director is impossible to miss and ignore. You will be reminded of Dziga Vertov and... Fritz Lang, except where Lang creates painfully anti-human worlds, Ioseliani's humanism fills ever frame, and makes the images all work together to create the world you would not mind to live in. And not a candy-colored doll-house world... the real one.

April is not really a film, its short format gives you more of a frame, a sketch to take home and color at your leasure, but it is so beautiful in spots you will not forget it too soon. Not a mature work, to be sure, and reminiscent of yet another great one's early film - the Tarkovsky's The Steamroller and the Violin.

The second feature on the disc - Falling Leaves - is a full size film, and is a chamber work, not a full blown symphony. It is quite simple, and slightly corny in its story line, but gives you a real human perspective, even if struggling with the Soviet's system's expectation - the master had to work with its limitations, and it shows.

You will not walk away thinking you just witnessed a monument of titanic proportions, but you will feel enriched, even if just a bit.

With all their limitations these early works are easy to recommend to anyone interested in the subtle ways of expression so long gone from our "Theater near you".