The character of Etero (Eka Chavleishvili) is familiar in a literary way. A single woman in her late 40s whose life has been in service to the males in her family, specifically an older brother and a widowed father who blames Etero for the death of her mother. Now that both men are dead themselves she is the token spinster in this Georgian mountain village, a reticent woman who runs a bleakly understocked general store and spends most of her free time picking blackberries near a gorge by the river, a pastime that almost gets her killed in the opening scene after she’s distracted by a particularly striking black bird. The metaphor is a bit heavy-handed, but the subsequent story about Etero finally finding love is unusual in ways that aren’t familiar.

Suffice to say that Etero’s near-death experience jolts something elemental in her, and she responds to this feeling by seducing her deliveryman, Murman (Temiko Chichinadze), later that day. Murman is married and even older than Etero—he often regales her with stories about his beloved grandsons—but he gives in to her and they make passionate love in Etero’s store room, a scene that the director, Elene Naveriani, adapting an award-winning novel, stages with all the awkward naturalism you would expect from two middle age people who don’t normally do this kind of thing. From there the affair is touch-and-go, as the pair meet clandestinely in places outside the village. But does being in love for the first time (“That’s what it’s like to lose your virginity” she says to herself after the initial tryst) actually change Etero? It’s hard to say because she is such an unreadable character. Chavleishvili maintains a stony, severe expression throughout the movie, wide-eyed but unsmiling, so on those rare occasions when she does smile, the effect is as chilling as it is comical. It also means that when she is transported by lust she seems all the more sensual, an attribute her female neighbors, all of whom are married and aspire to middle class affluence, could never imagine, as they look down on Etero despite knowing how cruel her upbringing was. Only Murman shows her the respect and kindness she’s never been afforded before, but believing that her independence has been hard won, she refuses to give it up, even when Murman proposes she join him in his new employment endeavor as a long-distance truck driver in Turkey, where they can live together, albeit in sin. The sin part doesn’t bother Etero. It’s the living together. She prefers her solitude.

Until the final scene most of the story’s twists and turns are gentle ones, and the ballast that stabilizes the whole enterprise is Chavleishvili, whose unique features and expressiveness are spellbinding. Even Naveriani occasionally seems transfixed by her lead actor, and will hold her face in the shot for an uncomfortable few beats too many. In that regard, Etero is totally unfamiliar, a rare bird who transcends the conventionally beautiful and enigmatic. 

In Georgian. Opens today in Tokyo at Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608).

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photo (c) 2023 Alva Film Production SARL-Takes Film LLC