By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4.5 cats
Director: Dea Kulumbegashvili
Starring: Ana Nikolava | Ia Sukhitashvili | Kakha Kintsurashvili | Merab Ninidze | Roza Kancheishvili
Year: 2025
Running time: 134
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt31350080
Michael says: “I thought I had already reviewed this one, but apparently that was not the case. I will say, this film both defies easy description, and my ability to rate it as I left the theater at the IFFBoston. I gave it 3 stars at the time, but after discussing it with Aaron for 20 minutes and letting it sit with me overnight, I now rank it 4 1/2 cats.
“It’s been over a month since I saw this viscerally upsetting Georgian film about a obstetrics doctor who travels the Georgian countryside in her spare time providing gynecological care and abortions to villagers to poor or too uneducated to provide for themselves. With alternatively horrific and beautiful imagery, director Dea Kulumbegashvili has created a complex, absorbing portrait of a woman who makes choices out of necessity and a desire to do good, that also find her operating in an ethically murky environment. By participating in random, sexual encounters, and viewing herself as a monstrous, scarred husk of a woman in her mind our protagonist defies categorization. Kulumbegashvili also uses lengthy shots barren, tempestuous, or beautiful landscapes similar to Nuri Bilge Ceylon, to illustrate the disparate states of living for this community. 4 1/2 cats