Turn/Overturn: Georgian Women’s Counter-Cinema, Coexistence, and Carrying with Care

Women’s Counter-Cinema and the “Gaze from Below”

The first feature film made in Georgia, Christine, which premiered in 1919, tells the story of a young peasant girl (White and Dzandzava, 2015). When a nobleman seduces Christine, she becomes pregnant, and after being shamed by her family and society at large, moves to Tbilisi. She becomes a sex worker and ultimately dies in a hospital, all alone. Christine was directed by a man and though the main character is a woman, her story is told through his eyes. Her narrative neither contests nor criticizes the oppression of women. It takes the widespread patriarchal/sexist virgin-whore dichotomy as a given and presents the woman as an object. Such tragic on-screen narratives are abundant in Georgian film archives. To this day, even satirical or humorous films, varying in plot, usually reflect the depressing reality of Georgian society.1

After Christine, women continue to appear frequently in Georgian films, although rarely as autonomous agents2  – a trend that changed in 1957, with the appearance of Lana Gogoberidze – a central figure in the history of Georgian cinema. Over the course of six decades, Gogoberidze has made 13 films, often inspired by her own family life, establishing herself as a director who cares deeply about women’s stories, putting their inner and intimate lives center stage (Pronger, 2021). Decades later, when Georgian directors and screenwriters began to shape the country’s modern cinema landscape, they were guided by Gogoberidze’s work (Imre, 2012). Teo Khatiashvili, art historian and Associate Professor at Ilia State University, argues that these contemporary artists are united by their focus on “gender problems.” Today’s Georgian cinema clearly shows our society’s internal struggle between traditional stereotypes and fairer gender relations (Khatiashvili, 2015).

Films centering gender issues – or what academics refer to as “women’s counter-cinema” – offer a critique of sexist structures existent within the on-screen narrative. Such cinema embraces contradictions and mistakes, breaks ‘film rules’, and explores the feminist idea that social reality is in flux (Camera Obscura Collective, 2010). Therefore, if reality can be reconfigured, so can the characters and their gender, because gender itself is not a stable identity. On the contrary, it is constantly re-created through the repetition of specific acts. If women’s counter-cinema seeks to change the representation of gender in film and society, it must also take an active role in rejecting depictions and understandings of reality, highlighting not only oppression, but also new ways of being (Thornham and Johnston, 1999).

Looking for these new ways of being, theorists Sylvia Wynter and Bracha L. Ettinger discuss humanness as a condition of relationality3. Instead of isolation, individuals express their humanity by being in a community. According to Wynter, neither the bee nor the hive can pre-exist each other (Wynter, 2015). Humanity that is purposefully created through relationships can change the current hierarchical and unequal paradigms of our society. However, escaping isolation does not mean that we lose our autonomy. Instead, coexistence requires that all parties in the relationship have equal agency. The boundaries that divide us into the acceptable “man” and the unacceptable “other” maintain current structures of oppression. Therefore, by consciously choosing to live with each other, we can overturn our discriminatory status quo.

Reflecting on this very issue, I would like to review three contemporary Georgian films that focus on women and girls, offering alternative forms of coexistence, a necessary aspect of being human. Nana Ekvtimishvili’s My Happy Family (2017) and In Bloom (2013) and Soso Bliadze’s A Room of My Own (2022) are examples of feminist storytelling. The first film is about Manana, a middle-aged woman living in Tbilisi, who suddenly decides to move out of her home; the second is about Eka and Natia, two teenage girls in the 90s trying to cope with their turbulent lives; the third – A Room of My Own – depicts two young women, Tina and Megi, living together during the Covid-19 quarantine4.

Instead of a general discussion of coexistence, I suggest an analysis of the specific symbols and dialogues used within these films to display coexistence and alternative ways of being. My particular method of inquiry is inspired by Roland Barthes and his concept of the “punctum” – a detail that has a specific significance for the viewer (in this case, me) and contains a layered meaning that may not be immediately clear, or even intended by the artist (Barthes, 1993).

In addition to the punctum, I turn to contemporary cultural theory. The focus of above-mentioned films on women reminds me of Sylvia Wynter’s “gaze from below” (Wynter, p. 186). The Jamaican theorist characterizes this concept as a gaze centering any systematically oppressed person, allowing them to speak directly to us about the discrimination they experience. Through this gaze, art can find new solutions to old problems, because the discussion is not led by the oppressors, but by the oppressed. In all three of these films, directors maintain a “gaze from below” and offer stories of protagonists who are rarely at the center of Georgian narratives. This is even exemplified by the camera angles utilized, mostly directing the lens toward women and focusing on their presence or absence in each scene.

The films – My Happy Family and In Bloom and A Room of My Own – defy audience and societal expectations and through these symbolic cracks, offer new representations of relationality. For example, A Room of My Own depicts an alternate reality where queer coexistence can flourish in the background instead of being a source of conflict and pain up front. In Bloom gives Eka and Natia a chance to live outside of violence as they throw their gun into the lake. My Happy Family offers scenes of a happy dinner between Manana and Soso, even though they no longer live in the same house. Therefore, contemporary Georgian cinema – and, to some extent, all forms of art – can show us practical ways of changing familiar characters and situations and teach us new definitions of such concepts as “self,” “other,” and “human.”

How the “Other” Half Lives

In one of My Happy Family’s early scenes, on the morning of her birthday, Manana and Soso – her husband – go down to the yard of their apartment building and get into a silver car (Ekvtimishvili and Gross, 2017). We learn that Manana does not drive and needs to be driven to work by her husband. In an already tired tone, Manana begs Soso not to buy wine for her birthday. “I’m not in the mood to celebrate,” she tells him; “Then don’t celebrate. People will still come,” Soso answers. It is here, in the daily denial of individual autonomy Manana experiences, that the film conveys how a woman – in opposition to her husband – becomes the “other.”

Wynter writes about this in her 2015 article, where she calls on readers to fight, so that we can rework our understanding of human from one that denies relationality into one that unites those othered from those perceived as human (the “human Man” and “human other”) (Wynter, p. 184). Winter (p. 187) claims that first, we used the concept of rationality to divide people, labeling the white man as rational and all others as non-rational beings. Then this division was followed by a second division, turning man into a member of the bourgeoisie and leaving everyone else as “the condemned of the Earth” (ibid.)  Here, “the condemned of the Earth” (p. 197) refers to all those below the white man in the hierarchical structure – women, people of color, queers, religious minorities, the disabled, and other minority groups. Therefore, it is natural that Manana can not drive or make her own decisions while living with the “human Man.” It is also Soso who gets the last line of the scene, telling Manana, “Do what you want. Who’s stopping you?”. Manana simply looks out of the passenger window, not replying that it is him. The audience knows anyway.

Meanwhile, In Bloom shows how Natia – one of the film’s protagonists – is kidnapped while standing in line for bread. Set in the 1990s, this scene sees a black Volga speed through the courtyard (Ekvtimishvili and Gross, 2013). Several boys get out, drag Natia across the pavement and into the car. They leave just as quickly and the viewer is forced to listen as Eka screams, “Leave her alone!”. The car’s sudden entry and exit can be read as symbolic of how quickly violence can invade Georgian girls’ lives. Natia marries her kidnapper. She, considered an inferior being because of her gender from the start, enters the new family as an “other” because her husband’s identity of a “human” depends on Natia not being one. The line between Volga and girl – inanimate object and woman – begins to blur.

Similar scenes other Tina in A Room of My Own. Tina tells the story of how she dropped out of university, became a stay-at-home wife, never got a job because she married young (Bliadze, 2022). At the beginning of the film, she is waiting for yet another man to save her. When this man picks Tina up, she gets into his car and immediately comes under his control. He chooses where to go, when to stop the car, and how to break up with Tina. Yet, the camera is focused on her, and for the majority of the breakup the only visible part of the boyfriend is his profile. This particular scene reveals Tina’s displeasure at not sitting in the actual and metaphorical driver’s seat. She tries to use sex, and later even violence, to gain power, but eventually returns to her rented room. Here, the film points to a vital aspect of othering – it is necessary for the woman’s existence to revolve around a man. However, like the end of In Bloom and My Happy Family, A Room of My Own does not leave Tina in the position of an “other” and instead, offers her a place at the center of her own narrative. For me, the title of the film echoes Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, starkly highlighting Woolf’s argument that women are autonomous beings and need their own space for self-realization (Woolf, 2019). Tina does not move in with her boyfriend, she largely cuts contact with men and begins working in a supermarket.

Overturning Coexistence in Georgia: Carrying with Care

During the last ten minutes of My Happy Family, Soso goes to Manana’s new apartment for the first time (Ekvtimishvili and Gross, 2017). Their dinner is interrupted by neighborhood men who want to find out who the “strange man” in Manana’s apartment is. When Manana learns that these men were sent by Rezo (her brother), she becomes furious. Soso tries to justify Rezo’s behavior, claiming that Rezo has always been like this. It is in response to this that Manana asks: “And you? How have you lived your life? Do you know how you have lived at all? And who are you at all?”. Although Soso does not answer, this is one of the rare instances in Ekvtimishvili’s film where the camera focuses on him; as if the director is giving us hope. I believe that here Soso begins to rethink his life, understanding that our humanness is framed within certain myths and stereotypes. Recognizing this would allow Soso and Manana to cross “the line/divide of co-humanity” (Wynter, p. 215) and recognize their autonomy.

This autonomy can also be seen in the penultimate scene of In Bloom. In the dark of the night, Eka and Natia go to Turtle Lake and throw their gun into the water, breaking the mandated cycle built on violence and taking full responsibility for their decisions (Ekvtimishvili and Gross, 2013). When Tina hugs Megi and they both begin to cry in a later scene of A Room of My Own, their characters reveal an alternative version of being human (Bliadze, 2022). Realizing that today’s society is co-created by individuals (including those who have had to “gaze from below”) allows these characters to subvert existing social structures. And though you and I are not protagonists of a film, if we can also comprehend that all “we have made we can unmake and consciously now remake,” then we will be left without the need for illusions, allowed to recognize our “illusory character”, reclaiming our agency and making change possible (Wynter, p. 242).

Indeed, the final scene in A Room of My Own depicts Tina in a much more autonomous state as she opens the door to her new roommate. Tina is an individual, but she is neither isolated nor separated (Bliadze, 2022). The film tells us that individuality is found in caring, equal relationships, not isolation. Similarly, as My Happy Family ends, we are left with a dark screen and silence which is soon filled with the voices of Merab Ninidze and Ia Shugliashvili (actors playing Manana and Soso) performing a duet of the song Manana sang alone in her apartment earlier in the film. It becomes nearly impossible then, in that moment when the two voices come together, not to think of Ettinger’s “carriance” – carrying with care.

Carriance is a part of Ettinger’s theory that is necessary for completing this article. In her works, Ettinger develops a concept based on the etymology of the word “to carry” and discusses its importance in recognizing humanness as a constant action (Kaiser & Thiele, 2016, p. 103). Since we were carried and cared for by another from the first moment of life, the only ethical decision we can make as human beings is to care for others. I understand this concept – centered around care and carrying – as a desire, value, virtue, and ultimately a basic impulse to care for and carry others. Ettinger encourages us to trust each other again at the end of the world and the end of trust – during Georgia’s violent 90s or pandemic quarantines – so that we can undergo “a transformation in how we see ourselves, or in who we are” (ibid., p. 104).

It is also important to note that the burden and responsibility of care should not fall solely on women. Unlike how it is in today’s structures, all genders must be deeply involved in the caregiving process in order to establish a co-humanity. Ettinger (p. 113) writes, “freedom of choice equals responsibility. ‘What do I carry?’ becomes to each human being a worthy question.” In this freedom, we have the opportunity as humans to care and carry each other or to deal with the consequences of not doing so. Manana, Soso, Eka, Natia, Megi and Tina make the choice to care for others – as well as themselves. In this carrying and caring, they find humanity. Here, we shift from division to co-existence.

An End and a Beginning

For people in contemporary Georgia, Wynter’s “turn/overturn” and Ettinger’s carriance need not  be a Big-Bang-like phenomenon. Instead, it can begin with Manana moving out of her family home, eating cake, playing music alone. It can go on with Eka dancing in defiance and Natia throwing the gun away. It can re-form every time Tina opens the door for someone else. Much like being human, it must be a continuous action, building on itself until it becomes the only real way. Indeed, there are new, better worlds and ways of being possible, and they must be reintroduced not by an omnipotent narrator, not by a “ten years later” title card but by the characters themselves, affecting their own change in tandem with the end of their world. The same can be said for you and me. Go ahead, “turn/overturn.”

 
Bibliography

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