Georgian Cinema: Dreaming at the Crossroads
- Once Upon a Time There Was a Singing Blackbird
- aka Lived Once a Song-Thrush)
(იყო შაშვი მგალობელი - USSR1971
- Otar Iosseliani
- 85 DCP
- NR
- Georgian Cinema
Screening Dates
- September 22, 2023 6:30
“[A] charming, wry comedy … The [film’s] rich soundscape of Tbilisi’s streets and cafés, and a musical sweep from Georgian folk to classical Bach, make Blackbird as much a pleasure for the ears as the eyes.”
Carmen Gray, BFI
Among prominent Georgian directors of the golden age, Iosseliani is the one who chose self-exile. After his third feature Pastorale (1976) was shelved, he moved to France, where he made 11 features between 1984 and 2015, refining a distinctive comedy-drama style—absurdist, wryly poetic, and often quite melancholic. You can see its roots in Blackbird, which takes a more freewheeling, observational visual and narrative approach. Iosseliani never comes right out and tells you what he thinks of his orchestra-percussionist protagonist Gia or of the various social demands Gia attempts to surf in one hectic 36-hour period of his thirtysomething life. But as Zach Lewis points out, “The weight of Iosseliani’s films comes through his Jacques Tati-esque curiosity of the shapeshifting society around him, and no film of his better exemplifies this” (In Review Online).
In Georgian with English subtitles
