The corrosive consequences of long-simmering resentments and regrets are slowly revealed in Davit Pirtskhalava’s feature directorial debut A Long Break (Didi shesveneba). More talky than cinematic, the film feels better suited for the stage than the big screen, but its complex approach to bullying and the burden carried by both victims and bystanders is sophisticated, even if its impact is thwarted by too many voices competing for attention.
Thirteen years since they’ve last been together, Tsitsi (Shako Mirianashvili) has convinced a handful of his former classmates to break into their old school for an evening of drinking and reminiscing. The past decade hasn’t been easy on any of them. The country’s struggling economy has led many to immigrate west to find work, while Tsitsi and the others have been left behind, scraping to make ends meet. Guga (Giorgi Sharvashidze), however, hasn’t met the same fate. His well-appointed apartment is so vast there aren’t enough furnishings to fill the rooms and his flashy mobile phone signals the comfortable salary he collects in his job at the bank. But these aren’t the reasons that Guga slowly becomes the focal point of conversation. As discussions unwind, pleasant memories are in short supply and start to revolve around Guga’s adolescent reign as the ruthless class bully. By inconspicuously shaping the flow of conversation, Tsitsi’s hope for an indictment instead shakes loose years of collective guilt and shame.
Largely set over the course of one long night, Pirtskhalava’s screenplay refuses to make an easy villain out of Guga. Instead, it explores how remorse can warp memory, and details the conflicted feelings of culpability Tsitsi, Devdar, Chito, and the others grapple with as they reveal how they followed Guga’s orders out of fear of reprisal, or were silent bystanders when horrific and humiliating acts were carried out. Tsitsi’s desire for retribution only exacerbates the trauma they all still carry, and Pirtskhalava convincingly argues that even worse than the bullying are the aftershocks that have manifested all these years later. Alcoholism, epilepsy, suicide attempts — each of the classmates carries with them an affliction borne from years of anxiety and self-condemnation, the perpetrators as damned as the victims.
Referencing filmmakers as disparate as Goderdzi Chokheli (specifically Children of Sin) and Quentin Tarantino (chamber piece pictures like Reservoir Dogs or The Hateful Eight would be likely touchpoints), Pirtskhalava strives to create an atmosphere of slow-boiling conflict and confrontation. Unfortunately, the film is both overwritten and overlong, often detouring down a new avenue or introducing a new character just as storylines are about to dramatically converge. In its best moments, A Long Break reflects the spikiness of Neil LaBute or David Mamet’s most charged work, but the film doesn’t achieve their level of mercilessness or scalpel-like precision. The looseness of the staging doesn’t help either, as characters are often breaking away in twos and threes, wandering down dim and drab hallways shot with no particular distinction by cinematographer Shalva Sokurashvili, further cooling a story that yearns for a climactic spark.
A Long Break sets up an exorcism of sorts, an evening that will purge years of accumulated personal demons. But as the sun comes up and Tsitsi and the others stumble into the dawn light, they’ve achieved no easy resolutions. They each head home, their stories and anecdotes rearranged into new perspectives that offer no better understanding of how to move forward. This uncertainty is perhaps the most honest outcome of Pirtskhalava’s film and the most disquieting, suggesting there are some acts that you can never be unshackled from.
Director, screenplay: Davit Pirtskhalava
Cast: Shako Mirianashvili, Giorgi Sharvashidze, Sandro Kalandadze, Mariam Pirtskhalava, Goga Shishinashvili, Goga Kobalia, Davit Chitaia, Giorgi Mazavrishvili, Gigi Rekhviashvili, Bidzina Nijaradze, Zviad Pirtskhalava
Producers: Tedo Dolidze, Davit Ujmajuridze, Suliko Tsulukidze, Tiko Nadirashvili
Cinematography: Shalva Sokurashvili
Production design: Berdia Arabuli, Guram Navrozashvili
Editing: Nodar Nozadze
Music, sound: Nika Paniashvili
Production companies: Millimeter Film (Georgia)
World sales: Syndicado
Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Discovery)
In Georgian
110 minutes
