‘The Antique’: Seville Review

Dir/scr: Rusudan Glurjidze. Georgia/Switzerland/Finland/Germany. 2024. 132mins

State politics wreaks havoc within the lives of 4 very totally different people in Rusudan Glurjidze’s second characteristic The Vintage, an odd-couple drama that largely performs out in a St Petersburg that appears completely detached to their plight. Set towards the backdrop of the 2006 deportation of 1000’s of Georgians from Russia, this rigorously crafted, darkly surreal and politically engaged movie subtly depicts how state energy moulds us, its deceptively amiable temper simmering with underlying violence from the very first body earlier than it later ignites. 

Fastidiously crafted, darkly surreal and politically engaged 

Following a decree over copyright points which can have had its roots in Russian-Georgian politics,The Vintage, one of many final foreign-funded movies to have been shot in Russia, was initially suspended from being screened in Venice’s Giornate degli Autori sidebar earlier than being readmitted. Like Glurjidze’s first movie Home Of Others (2016), the same mixture of realism and darkish poetry, The Vintage has been chosen as Georgia’s Academy Awards submission. Now enjoying in Seville, the movie is teeming with concepts which crucially by no means over-impose themselves on the unfolding drama, and will appeal to additional pageant consideration.

It’s 2006, and ageing, cantankerous, opera-loving Vadim (Sergey Dreyden, who died in 2023) lives alone in a big Saint Petersburg condominium. The condominium is up on the market at a knockdown worth as a result of Vadim wish to keep on residing there till he dies. Bringing an explosion of vitality and color to the chilly condominium, Georgian Medea (Salome Demuria) strikes in, having – like many Georgians on the time – offered up and moved to Russia seeking higher instances. Sharp and vivacious, she is handled terribly by the outdated patriarch Vadim, however a curious and affecting odd-couple relationship unfolds between them.

Medea works in a store promoting antiques which were illegally purchased in from Georgia: the boss is upstairs and solely communicates to staff by audio system within the ceiling, a remnant of outdated Soviet modes of surveillance that Medea mercilessly pokes enjoyable at. She’s been adopted to Russia by Lado (Vladimir Daushvili), whom for causes unknown – maybe just because he’s a little bit of an fool – she initially rejects however then, virtually out of pity, she invitations into the condominium. Scenes of mild farce ensue, with Lado unintentionally breaking Vadim’s beloved document participant. Later, a fourth determine will take part: Peter (Vladimir Vdovichenkov), Vadim’s son – a chip off the patriarchal block who finds himself uncomfortably straddled between the outdated world, by way of his reluctant allegiance to his father, and the brand new, by his attraction to Medea.

There’s a darkness about Vadim’s working life that Medea learns nothing about as a result of, on Vadim’s personal reckoning, she wouldn’t wish to know. No matter he was as much as, this human relic has been left completely alone, primarily with out pals or household, taking consolation solely from his tradition and his solitary visits to a sports activities corridor the place he watches children enjoying curling matches in surreal gradual movement scenes. Dreyden – who, on one studying, stands out as the vintage of the title – provides a towering swansong efficiency of nuance, arresting physicality and sudden tenderness. Demuria too delivers a wonderful efficiency as a realistic survivor who has discovered to sidestep the worst of an unpleasant, man-made world however who, you observed, now not trusts anybody sufficient to get near them.

The darkness inside these characters additionally haunts the movie: it is a realm by which nothing is kind of proper, and which is constructed on fragile foundations. Radio propaganda from Vladimir Putin is heard, stating that traditionally, Georgia doesn’t exist – and shortly sufficient we’re seeing Georgians in Russia – Lado amongst many others – being rounded up by the safety forces and put in vans to be deported, as really occurred in 2006. 

The chilly, stately fantastic thing about Saint Petersburg beneath snow is widely known in rigorously composed photographs by Basque DoP Gorka Gomez Andreu, none extra evocative than judiciously composed, repeated aerial photographs of a tiny Vadim crossing a bridge in his signature woollen hat towards the town’s immense backdrop. Cluttered, shadowy interiors, stuffed with antiques that everybody appears to wish to promote to make a fast buck, are a big a part of the movie’s temper.