Levan Koguashvili’s film — about a lonely 40-year-old schoolteacher who takes up with the wife of a soon-to-be-released convict — is a compassionate tragicomedy commenting on relationships and the profound emotional responsibilities they trigger.
Georgian director Levan Koguashvili's Blind Dates is a compassionate tragicomedy about bachelorhood's quiet desperation and its constant search for true companionship.
Single and balding, forty-year-old school teacher Sandro (a brilliantly straight-faced Andro Sakvarelidze) still lives at home under the daily scrutiny of his hilarious, ever-bickering parents. After a blind date fizzles out into emotionless absurdity, Sandro and his sidekick Iva (Archil Kikodze) take off for the weekend to a rainy seaside. There, the two have a chance encounter with hairdresser Manana (Ia Sukhitashvili). Love blooms — or, in accordance with Koguashvili and Boris Frumin's wry script, it broods — but it is short-lived. Manana's husband, Tengo (Vakho Chachanidz), is released from jail and soon enough, Sandro winds up embroiled in a scheme that will force him to choose between love and honour.
With a seasoned storyteller's sense of
framing, Koguashvili delivers a compassionate
film about arrested development
persisting well into adulthood. Exhibiting
a keen eye for human tenderness —
with help from cinematographer Tato
Kotetishvili — Blind Dates is ultimately a
film about relationships and the profound
and unpredictable emotional responsibilities
they trigger. Part of Georgia's new and rapidly
growing crop of talented filmmakers,
Koguashvili is a director whose cinematic
sensibility has us looking forward to what will
no doubt be many wonderful films to come.
Dimitri Eipides