Rati Oneli’s new short takes its title from the opening line of a T.S. Eliot poem, “We are the hollow men.”
The original poem concerns the existence of the emotionally lifeless, here represented by a prodigal son (Kakha Kintsurashvili) and his bitter, aged father (Murman Jinoria). The son has recently returned to their rural home in Georgia after years in the United States after his mother passed away. No longer bound together by the woman who clearly maintained any semblance of familial bond between them, the film is a study of a strained relationship captured in chilly hues and hung in an atmosphere of quiet tragedy.
The son’s arrival back in Georgia is not a triumphant one. He feels as though he is there through a sense of duty and, perhaps, the failure of his own particular American dream. He is distant from his father, mournful to the extent of detachment, and somewhat adrift in a home he no longer seems comfortable and familiar in. He takes his father’s jabs – from verbal barbs about abandonment to one fierce physical slap on the face – largely without retort, but their mutual iciness is reproach enough. He may tend to his father’s frailties, silently cleaning up his sick in the night, but these actions feel perfunctory and never verge upon the warmth of filial affection.
Cinematographer Evgeny Rodin frames the slowly unfolding drama in withdrawn medium or long shots, often only containing one of the men at a time – or separating them with reflections or camera movements. When they are placed together, it is usually to witness the latest sour exchange. When not rattling around the dimly lit house, the son tries to re-learn to ride a horse, attempting awkwardly to reconnect with the life he left behind.
The end credits are accompanied by a performance of ‘Hey, ho, the wind and the rain’ from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which suggests harshness in life is commonplace. This might imply that things carry on regardless, but We Are the Hollow Men is so deeply saturated by such an affecting sadness, defined by the spiritual emptiness of its leading men, that it is difficult to see far beyond it.
Director, producer: Rati Oneli
Cast: Kakha Kintsurashvili, Murman Jinoria
Screenplay: Evgeniia Marchenko, Rati Oneli
Cinematography: Evgeny Rodin
Editing: Rati Oneli, Evegeniia Marchenko
Sound: Beso Kacharava
Distribution: Office of Film Architecture (Georgia)
Venue: San Sebastian Film Festival (Zabaltegi – Tabakalera)
In Azerbaijani, Georgian
16 minutes
