12/08/2024 - Tato Kotetishvili’s feature debut is an urban road movie starring two solitary men who shine neon light around the outskirts of Tbilisi in exchange for closeness

Nika Gongadze (left) and Nikolo Ghviniashvili in Holy Electricity

Already an established cinematographer, known for his sensitive lenses in Levan Koguashvili’s Blind Dates [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Levan Koguashvili
film profile] and Uta Beria’s Negative Numbers [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Uta Beria
film profile], among other works, Tato Kotetishvili is now trying his luck in the director’s chair with Holy Electricity [+see also:
interview: Tato Kotetishvili
film profile], which has just premiered in the Locarno Film Festival’s Cineasti del Presente competition alongside 14 other contenders. It’s a rambling story about weirdos meeting other weirdos, with no clear indication of where they’re coming from or where they’re going. The only sure outcome is social interaction, which seems to melt away the characters’ loneliness, at least at first glance, as its lasting calming effect on the wandering souls is rather unclear.

The opening scene, featuring a ceremony commemorating a dead man, clarifies the family bonds between the protagonists – young Conga (Nika Gongadze) has just lost his father, and his cousin, Bart (transgender man and activist Nikolo Ghviniashvili), is promising to treat Conga as his son. In the next sequence, they’re digging through a metal waste dump together in search of something suitable to sell at the flea market later in the day. The high point is when they find a suitcase full of rusty crosses, which they decorate with colourful neon tubes and hand out door-to-door. This is where their journey as urban flâneurs truly begins. In the otherwise famous city of Tbilisi with its exceptionally colourful architecture, the director has them stroll through scruffy households in even scruffier neighbourhoods, encountering an array of peculiar characters: a self-taught “acrobat” whose hobby is striking impossible poses, old, chatty women with cats, a stubborn white-haired drummer, a cheerful drag queen, a Romani, street coffee-seller with whom Conga starts flirting by asking endless questions. They often wake up in the car or in random places after heavy nights, or they dream on rooftops about the money they might make from their business endeavour. But their sales-based successes don’t take them too far: Bart won’t even be able to repay his old debts and he’ll be hanged upside down as a warning, while his tormentors’ indifference and the overall environment ensure that everyone in the area is in the same boat.

In his director’s notes, Kotetishvili states that his aim was to observe his hometown, Tbilisi, and to accept his fellow citizens “as they are: crazy, lovely, eccentric”. He has definitely fulfilled his goal, but the diversity of the secondary characters featured, all played by non-professionals, fails to save the film from monotony. Furthermore, the director’s overall approach to the environment is alienating—the Tbilisi citizen behind the camera clearly distinguishes himself from those in front of the lens. He barely bothers to film them, only highlighting their most distinctive features. Such an exoticising gaze, which results in a loss of authenticity, might be blamed on the involvement of too many professionals (three scriptwriters were involved, along with seven producers and co-producers) and the obvious challenge of deciding which local traits might intrigue an international audience. A challenge which has resulted in a curious but somewhat soulless and kaleidoscopic representation of maverick characters, which is attractive to look at, but which doesn’t make much of an impression due to the author’s lack of interest in their personalities beyond mere spectacle. A flaw that might not be so eye-popping if there weren't an accumulated filmography of heartfelt Georgian films to compare it to.

Holy Electricity was produced by Georgia’s Zango Studio and Nushi Film, in co-production with the Netherlands’ GoGo Film, The Film Kitchen, and Arrebato Films.