Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry 
Shashvi Shashvi Maq’vali
ブラックバード、ブラックバード、ブラックベリー 「Burakkuba-do, Burakkuba-do, Burakkuberi-」
Release Date: February 03rd, 2024
Duration: 110 mins.
Director: Elene Naveriani
Writer: Nikoloz Mdivani, Elene Naveriani (Screenplay), Tamta Melashvili (Original Novel)
Starring: Eka Chavleishvili, Temiko Chichinadze, Lia Abuladze, Mariam Didia, Joni Janashia, Sopo Grigolashvili,
In a small village in Georgia, a group of middle-aged women are sat drinking wine and eating cakes as they gossip. Their attention turns to 48-year-old Etero (Eka Chavleishvili), a stout figure who hangs in the background. She runs the village store. She has no husband or children. She is still single. The only thing the group can bring themselves to remark upon when it comes to Etero is her forthcoming menopause and unfavourable comparisons with her late mother. Etero is not as good looking as her, not as slim. This is said with a touch of scorn and a lot of glee. A look of irritation clouds Etero’s sharp-featured face and she tartly replies, “It’s because I’m single and nobody bothers me anymore, all my teeth are in place, my hair’s still dark and my skin’s smooth. My boobs are in place and my ass isn’t sagging like an old testicle.”
Of course, after Etero’s retort to her supposed friends their leisurely chat is over. However, in order to save face, the women take the line, “At least we have known the love of men.”
What they don’t know is that Etero has a secret lover. A married man capable of poetry who lights up her life with genuine passion. It comes complete with hot-blooded trysts in stockrooms and hotels that go on under the noses of scornful and pitying villagers who regard her as “leftover woman.”
This scene perfectly encapsulates the dynamics of Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry, director Elene Naveriani’s third feature. It is a coming-of-age tale, based on a hit novel by feminist author Tamta Melashvili, where the story skewers the notional failures of the “leftover woman” and celebrates the ability of women to choose their own paths in life. It avoids being prescriptive about female subjugation by organically through simply having Etero follow her desires despite the derision of characters who live live by outdated views.
It takes place in the present day and is shot mainly in a rather beautiful stretch of countryside. The settings feels a little out of time, a little Soviet, considering the lack of fashionable clothes, consumer products like TVs and the pastel colour schemes and old-fashioned blocky stone housing – including Etero’s spartan concrete store, a building as solid as her. The only sign of modernity are a couple of smartphones and a trip to the thoroughly modern Tibilisi that she takes late in the story. This sense of anachronism feels quite fitting for how outdated the views of Etero’s detractors. Their dialogue is about where a woman’s worth lies or constantly highlighting Etero’s status as a “left-over woman.”
The failings of Etero is a chorus coming from characters who are played perfectly by actors who radiate contempt – those smug grins! – when interacting with her and when talking of their families, no matter how dysfunctional they are, as revealed by brief glimpses of loutish husbands. However, far from being neglected in love, viewers see her status as a singleton is a conscious choice.
Set dressing in her home reveals a lot. Photographic portraits of her miserable-looking father and brother dominate the dining room and the simple technique of the camera panning across from those to the dining table reveals their “ghosts” to show the echoes of malign male relatives who had oppressed her into the role of matriarch following the passing of her mother. When feeling feisty, Etero sticks their photos in a drawer and takes out a smaller one of her mother, servicing a sense of misguided guilt the other villagers deliberately encourage whenever they invoke the spirits of her parents. Tellingly, she has a dream of building a new house with the money she has earned at her store.
Thus, Etero exploring her carnal nature is the ultimate form of resistance she embarks upon. Newly awakened by a near-death experience involving blackberries, a blackbird, and a perilous slide down a ravine at the start of the film, her pursuit of pleasure and adoration feels just as wilful as her choice to live alone. Full-on nudity is seen on screen with no blushes in a way akin to how Etero lives her life. However, crucially, sex proves to be a means to an end dedicated to finding her own way, one which reflects the full blossoming of her independence as she continues to dictate what she does with her life on her own terms even as her lover offers genuine support and a path in life.
In Eka Chavleishvili, the film has its perfect embodiment of an independent woman, her sharp eyebrows and square mouth showing frowns that can be read as displeasure or digging up deep determination to endure the barbs of others as she lives life her way. Her eyes are especially expressive as they light up with delight over a message from her lover or go flinty when faced with insult and cooking up one of her own. They easily tap into empathy and so it is possible to go beyond platitudinous reactions to downturns in Etero’s life and become deeply emotionally invested in her, care about her fortunes in and out of love no matter how tough situations get.
For nearly two hours, we see Etero resist labelling in her own quiet and defiant way as she grows into herself after a lifetime of being pigeonholed by others. She chooses how she seeks love and acceptance and at all times, she is in control. There is a certain oppressiveness to her situation but that is leavened by the dry wit Etero demonstrates when she bats insults back.
The film does get dark as she faces her uncertain future. The charm of Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry is seeing Etero motivated to keep moving forward and how her determination is shown to inspire people around her. As the film enters its bleakest moments, her determination is what allows the film to reach a magical turn at the end as a blackbird makes its presence felt and changes her life once again. It is a truly wonderful and uplifting moment.
Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry was screened at the Osaka Asian Film Festival 2024 at Cine Libre Umeda on March 03. It will be screened again on March 09th at ABC Hall.