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Ilya Koberidze (Georgia, 1984) debuted with
Lass den Sommer nie Wieder Kommen/ Let the Summer Never Come Again (2017).
Ras Vkhedavt Rodesac cas Vukurebt?/ What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (2021)
is a sort of fairy tale.
The film is slow and overlong, with many inessential scenes that
detract from the pace and feel like random detours.
More than telling a story the film is a subtle chronicle of
life in a village, a chronicle deprived of pathos.
We see only their legs, but a young woman and a young man bump into each other twice.
Lisa is a medical student and Giorgi a football player.
In the evening the camera is showing us the city from higher up and we hear their voices as they decide on a date at a cafe'.
A voiceover tells us that objects (a plant, a security camera, a drainpipe and the wind) decided to intervene and warn Lisa of impending danger.
They hint at a curse. The wind is supposed to explain it
in detail but the noise of a car makes it impossible for her to hear it.
Lisa tells her housemate Maya what happened, but Lisa didn't hear the full curse:
to make sure that they will never find each other again.
(Here the audience of the movie is instructed to close their eyes and open it again).
The following morning Lisa and Giorgi wake up looking different.
Maya assumes that Lisa is simply sick and encourages her to go to her date.
Giorgi is not admitted to the football field by his coach, who doesn't recognize him.
The voiceover informs us that Lisa has also lost her medical knowledge and
Giorgi has lost his football skills.
Lisa and Giorgi look in vain for each other at the cafe' but can't recognize each other, and so each assumes that the other flaked out.
Lisa, unable to keep working in the medical field, finds a job at that cafe'.
Giorgi, his football career ruined, also finds a job at that cafe'.
And so Lisa and Giorgi see each other every single day, but they don't know it.
They are both depressed.
Maya tells Lisa of a woman who can get rid of the curse: a music teacher.
Two men ask both Giorgi and Lisa, separately, the same question about borrowing a fishing line. Both Giorgi and Lisa give it to them and they see that it is used to play a funny prank.
Meanwhile, a woman filmmaker named Nino is planning a film
titled "Stray Dogs Caressed by the Wind" with
a cinematographer and a photographer. They want to film
six couples in love and
Ana, the photographer, is in charge of finding the couples.
The World Cup of football starts. Giorgi roots for Argentina and his idol is Messi.
Lisa visits the music teacher.
The voiceover tells us that a dog named Vardy is a fan of the English football team.
The cafe' owner was hoping for a crowd to watch the football games, but
football fans prefer two different cafes that are better equipped to show the games. The dog Vardy favors the one by the theater.
Ana is scouting the city for 50 couples of young lovers, from which Nino will pick six.
We see children playing football until the ball falls in the river and is taken away by the rapids.
The voiceover tells us that the story takes place at the most violent time when
atrocities are committed all the time... but it is referring to the killing of animals by humans.
Back to the World Cup, dogs set out in different directions to watch the games
Children escape from school and come to Lisa's cafe' to get ice cream but the
ice cream machine is not ready yet and they are told to wait one hour.
The cafe's owner leaves Giorgi in charge of projecting the football game.
Giorgi and Lisa are alone the whole evening in the cafe.
It's the first time that they actually speak to each other.
Ana sees them and needs one more couple to complete her job. She convinces them
to accept the audition.
Lisa's boss is nostalgic of the old days when life was simpler.
One night Nino studio chooses the six couples for her film and tells the
cinematographer that they can start shooting.
The boss sends Lisa and Giorgi to pick up a birthday cake from a farm.
For several minutes the film is wordless. We see Lisa going out with friends and people watching football at a cafe' and other actions hard to identify.
Nino convinces Lisa and Giorgi to be in the film.
Giorgi was looking forward to watch the final game of the World Cup but instead
finds himself walking Lisa home.
Giorgi's favorite Argentina wins the final but Giorgi doesn't see it.
There are more wordless sequences that are hard to decipher
(a camera rotating slowly under a tree, for example).
The shooting ends.
The film is shown in a theater to the staff and the six couples only.
And miraculously they appear on screen with their old faces.
They now recognize each other.
The voiceover is now revealed to be the voice of the director himself, apologizing for having made a useless movie.
(Copyright © 2024 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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