Set in the mountains of Georgia: Stalin’s birthplace, not Ray Charles’. Movies set in the mountains of Eastern Europe always grab me. The main character is a European who basically parachutes in to a very remote and traditional mountain village and is treated hospitably. Only in the movies, one wishes, is someone this insensitive to the folkways and mores of the people who are trying to accept them; and are those trying to explain the person’s mistakes so inarticulate. It struck me later that the director, who was present and speaks no English, is Georgian and was telling a story to Georgians that included this storyline. That’s how they see us, I guess, and he is probably right. We are clueless and deaf to good advice.
Certainly worth seeing. A number of enigmatic figures on horses are featured; and in combination with the mountains, this is very engaging. Also a fistfight between two old village guys is quite well done. A recurring theme in my things here is how great is the contrast between storytelling in this type of movie and what we are accustomed to in English language mass media. There would be mandatory elements to, for example, such a fight scene that just do not show up in this movie, and its ever so novel and entertaining.
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