The German director Veit Helmer is famous for shooting movies in Eastern Europe and Western Asia, though the locations seem to have less to do with thematic settings than with convenience. His latest is set in Georgia, and in interviews Helmer has said the only reason for shooting in Georgia was because they have interesting cable cars, the mode of transportation that sparked his imagination for this tale, which is about two female cable car operators, one a slightly cynical veteran, Nina (Nini Soselia), the other a new recruit with a more naive disposition named Iva (Mathilde Irrmann). If this gentlest of movies has any conflict, it’s between the two women and their boss, a stout, humorless man who doesn’t tolerate the kind of relaxed work ethic the women abide by. The cable car is an important means of public transportation in this sparsely populated corner of Georgia, and the two operators take advantage of its unique qualities to entertain themselves and their fares, much to the consternation of their supervisor. In one of the film’s many magical realist moments, the women install ropes on the gondola and use them to suspend an elderly man in a wheelchair below so that he can get a true bird’s eye view of the scenery, a segment that may trouble more thoughtful moviegoers: What kind of safety precautions did the film crew carry out, since the cable cars themselves look pretty old.

The film has no dialogue, which intensifies the whimsical quality of the story. Nina and Iva, who pass each other on an almost half hourly basis during work shifts, eventually fall in love from a distance and strike up a romance, and the mute component of their relationship makes it feel even more precious than it normally would be. As the wheelchair episode illustrates, they are quite mischievous and one could infer that Helmer sort of looks at LGBTQ romances in that register, but except for some casual nudity Gondola, with its cartoony action and funny looking marginal characters (lots of grumpy but well-intentioned grandmas and grandpas), could easily pass for Saturday afternoon family fare. More interesting than the very slight story is the scenery, which is probably why Helmer really decided to film in this part of Georgia with its dramatic mountain ranges, friendly and cute livestock (which ride the cable cars as well), and gingerbread-house hamlets. The movie doesn’t attempt to engage with our modern world and thus qualifies as escapism of the purest sort. It’s a finely created confection that melts in your mouth before vanishing completely. 

Now playing in Tokyo at Cinema Qualite Shinjuku (03-3352-5645).

Gondola home page in Japanese

photo (c) Veit Helmer-Filmproduktion, Berlin and Natura Film, Tbilisi