In Bloom ****
Dir: Nana
Ekvtimishvili, Simon Gross. With: Lika Babluani, Mariam Bokeria, Zurab
Gogaladze. 102 mins. Cert: 15
The business of Nana
Ekvtimishvili and Simon Gross’s very assured drama is insecurity: it charts
some stormy teenage rites of passage amid the chaos of the Georgian civil war.
While dutiful Eka (Lika Babluani) struggles to process her alcoholic father’s absence,
her coltish companion Natia (Mariam Bokeria) toys with a handgun gifted by a
passing beau as a means of fending off bullies – aggression simply being the
done thing in these parts. Read whatever symbolism you like into that weapon,
but it’s merely the centrepiece of a consistently fractious universe, as the
directors make a point of keeping the wider conflict off-screen: both in class
and out on the breadlines, other, more localised skirmishes are never too far
away. The film finds the subtle tells that suggest these free-roaming girls
might themselves have become prisoners of war, while enveloping its heroines in
a persuasive turbulence: unpredictable, never forced, and forever compelling.
In Bloom opens in selected cinemas from today.
No comments:
Post a Comment