★★★★☆
The Eccentrics is by far Georgian director Eldar Shengelaia’s most absurdist and outright comedic film.
Seemingly set towards the end of the 19th century, The Eccentrics (1973) follows the naïve Ertoazi (Demno Jgenti), a handsome but hapless young man from a rural village. Within the first five minutes of the film, Ertoazi’s father dies during a supra (a traditional Georgian feast) with their neighbour Sirbiladze, a fact Ertoazi himself fails to realise, leading to a comedic exchange, the style of which sets the tone of the rest of the film.
‘He’s sleeping the big sleep’.
‘What sleep?’
‘He has bitten the dust’.
‘What dust?’
‘He has kicked the bucket’.
‘What bucket?’
‘He has died, he’s dead! And he took my three jugs of wine to heaven’.
As is tradition, Ertoazi is left to pay his father’s debts — to do so, he dismantles his entire home, in the end only left with the clothes on his back. It is this change in fortune that kickstarts the rest of the film, as Ertoazi sets off to the big city to remake his life, starting by trading a gifted pot of honey for a little black hen.
Soon after his arrival to town, Ertoazi falls in love with the beautiful Margalita (Ariadna Shengelaia, then-wife of director Eldar Shengelaia). Before he knows it, Ertoazi finds himself accidentally attempting to bury Margalita’s prison warden lover alive, leading him to be sentenced to ten years in a qvevri (the large earthenware vessel used to make traditional Georgian wine) cell — his faithful chicken companion only receives seven years. It is here that Ertoazi meets the ageing physicist Kristopore (Vasili Chkhaidze), the likes of Leonardo da Vinci, who convinces Ertoazi he can build his own flying machine.
The two eventually manage to escape the prison and despite the efforts of both the prison warden and Margalita’s other lover — a psychiatrist who diagnoses the two with ‘Iberius Naïve Caucasus Aero-Dynamicus Temperamentus’, a disease never seen in Europe before — manage to succeed in creating a proto-helicopter. Flying high above his village, Ertoazi pays off the rest of his father’s debts, before he and Kristopore soar away into the clouds.
While a relatively simple film for all intents and purposes — the humour is easy to follow, often edging on slapstick — it offers its viewers an admirable escape from reality, hinting at the promise of better things on the horizon
As director Shengelaia recalled in a 2016 interview, ‘almost all Georgian cinema is an allegory of that time. Because you couldn’t speak directly. For example, The Eccentrics was perceived as a fairy tale, but in fact, it’s an ode to freedom!’
Indeed, for viewers of any age, the lesson gained is to be one’s self, no matter how eccentric, and to go after what brings you joy.
Film details: The Eccentrics (1973), directed by Eldar Shengelaia. Available to watch on Klassiki and Cavea+.
