Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry
Eka Chavleishvili is simply extraordinary in Elene Naveriani's third feature, about a Georgian woman grappling with her independence.
Among its many prizes, this film, a co-production between Georgia and Switzerland, won twice over at the 2023 Sarajevo Film Festival gaining awards for best film and best actress, both well deserved. The director is Elene Naveriani, here making her second full-length feature, and her film is all about its central character, a woman named Etero. The fact that Etero is 48 years old, plump and single makes her an unlikely figure to be found screen centre but as enacted by Eka Chavleishvili it can be acclaimed as one of the very best of cinema’s portraits of women. The film is an adaptation by the director and Nikoloz Mdivani of the novel by Tamta Melashvili which won great acclaim on its publication in 2020 and, while Naveriani’s work here is to be much admired, the contribution of her leading actress is even more vital to the impact of the piece.
In tackling this material Naveriani is clearly just as much concerned as Melashvili was in making points about the way in which the lives of women are so often shaped by how society sees them. But, if that means that Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry is very much a film with a message, it is so astutely characterised that the people in it come fully alive in their own right and nobody does this more than Etero herself. She lives in the Georgian village where she was born and for some twenty years she has run a store there. Having grown up with a father and brother who had not treated her well and lacking any compensatory presence because her mother had died of cancer shortly after her birth, Etero has a poor impression of men and has chosen to embrace life unencumbered, an independent spirit who goes her own way. She has a number of acquaintances, women with whom she has grown up, and they think of themselves as her friends despite adopting a condescending tone and joking about her behind her back. Mocking the fact that she has never had a man is in effect their way of feeling superior to her because they have fulfilled society’s expectations by being wives and mothers even if they have not had happy lives. Indeed, it is with a younger woman, Elene (Ani Mogeladze), that Etero finds real sympathy and a truer friendship. But it is a man who suddenly becomes a key figure in Etero's life, this being Murman (Temiko Chichinadze) who delivers goods to her store. He could well be as old as Etero is and he is married but, while keeping it secret, the two of them suddenly become lovers, a move initiated by her.
Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry is very much a film of the present age, one that is not embarrassed by sexual issues and includes scenes of graphic nudity, so it may seem a bizarre comparison to make but, nevertheless, for me the central situation carries echoes of David Lean's classic British film of 1945, Brief Encounter. In that film Celia Johnson memorably played a housewife and mother whose settled existence is upturned when she falls in love and, no longer youthful, experiences passionate love for the first time despite her existing role as the wife of a good and reliable man. Similarly, after Etero has instigated sex with Murman following a near-death experience when she had slipped down a ravine, she discovers that Murman is genuinely tender and capable of a deeply felt and rewarding relationship. In Noël Coward’s Brief Encounter the heroine has to grapple with the morality of possibly leaving her husband to follow her passionate feelings but, while Etero also comes face-to-face with the need to make a choice, hers is of a different kind. She has to decide which means more to her, the life of true independence which has brought her satisfaction or the much more conventional one shared by a man and a woman. It is crucial to the story that the options should be evenly balanced, the love life not necessarily being best, and it is perhaps the finest achievement in Eka Chavleishvili’s performance that she is able to convey so vividly the true satisfaction that she has found in the way of life that she had chosen even when expressing it does not rely on words. It should also be said that Temiko Chichinadze is very well cast as Murman and that the film is very adept at giving us a sense of the community in which these events take place.
Having recently reviewed the Syrian film Nezouh and criticised it for the conflict that arose from the clumsy insertion of elements of magical realism into a naturalistic drama, I should mention that this film has a comparable blend but Naveriani knows how to handle it. A pre-credit sequence portrays Etero’s near fatal accident and immediately goes beyond realism - it even includes an imaginary scene in which Etero sees her own corpse which then comes back to life. The fall, the shock and the recovery come close to being a metaphor for the story that will develop and starting in this way allows Naveriani to return briefly to this register from time to time having established that as a possibility at the outset. Furthermore, the deep conviction of the characterisations on a naturalistic level guarantees that we totally believe in these people. If the film has any weaknesses, they are relatively minor. I slightly question how appropriate it is to include comparatively late on a passing reference to the fact that as a schoolgirl Etero had had a strong crush on another girl. I do so because, although it is never followed up, it could be seen as hinting at lesbianism despite the adult relationship that Etero establishes with Murman: if that was the intention, Etero’s choice of independence could be linked to hiding her sexuality, but it is far more appropriate to the film’s theme for her lifestyle to have been embraced for its own sake. It's also the case that in the last half hour the film seems to follow a fresh path which seems less than ideal in this context. But, while it would be wrong for a critic to give away what that is, I can say that there is a kind of plot twist ahead which takes one by surprise in the best possible way. It leads to a final scene which, ending on a long-held shot, is perfect in its ambiguity. This film may have a theme but rather than being over-didactic it closes on a question mark, one that invites every viewer to interpret for themselves both what Etero is feeling and what they themselves feel about it. It is a masterly conclusion.
Original title: Shashvi shashvi maq’vali.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Eka Chavleishvili, Temiko Chichinadze, Pikria Nikabadze, Lia Abukladze, Ani Mogeladze, Anka Khurtsidze, Tamar Mdinaradze, Mariam Didia, Sopo Grigolashvili, Giorgi Kartvelishvili, Iako Tchilaia.
Dir Elene Naveriani, Pro Thomas Reichlin, Britta Rondelaub and Ketie Daniela, Screenplay Elene Naveriani and Nikoloz Mdivani, based on the novel Shashvi shashvi maq’vali by Tamta Melashvili, Ph Agnesh Pakozdi, Pro Des Ted Baramidze, Ed Aurora Franco Vogel, Costumes Nina India.
ALVA Film/Takes Film-New Wave Films.
110 mins. Switzerland/Georgia/France/The Netherlands/Germany. 2023. UK Rel: 3 May 2024. Cert. 15.
