Dodo Abashidze Movies

Directors Sergei Paradzhanov and Dodo Abashidze resurrected an old Soviet Georgian folktale as the basis for their film The Legend of Suram Fortress. The fortress in question is forever under construction, and forever collapsing before the last brick can be laid. The advice of a fortuneteller is sought out; the young fellow sent out to seek this advice happens to be the son of a man who years earlier had jilted the fortuneteller. Out of pique, she tells him that he must be walled up in the fortress' wall, else the structure will continue to tumble. So many ancient legends are based upon self-sacrifice that one would think that Legend of Suram Fortress would have nothing new to offer--and one would be quite unfair to this well-crafted film to think along those lines. Never as brilliant as the critics made it out to be, Suram Fortress is still an immensely satisfying work from a gifted filmmaking team. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Poetry, vivid imagery and allegory mark the nearly two-dozen episodes of this epic tale about human life and its troubles, set in the Georgian village of Kachetien near the turn of the century. One continuing thread concerns a young woman, in love with one man, who is married off to another by the village elders. When she is caught meeting her true love, she is paraded through the village for public abuse and ridicule, during which globs of mud are hurled at her. Many vividly drawn and eccentric village characters are portrayed, from simpletons to fortune-tellers, and their dreams reveal what each would consider to be happiness in this life. The well-regarded director of this film, Tengiz Abuladze, was known for his visually sophisticated and symbolically rich works. The Wishing Tree is the second film in a Georgian trilogy by Abuladze: the first, released in 1969, was Encounter, about the primitivist artist Nikos Piosmani the last, released in 1987, is known as Repentance. The Wishing Tree, based on a tale told in blank verse by Georgi Leonidze, won many prizes: the All-Union Grand Prize, the Prize of Karlovy Vary Film Festival, the State Prize of Georgian Republic, and the David Donatello Prize from Italy, as "Best Foreign Picture." ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This comedy follows the adventures of a group of people determined to form a soccer team in Soviet Georgia. The team makes good progress against local opponents, and is beginning to think about professional status, until they are thoroughly beaten by a British professional team. ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi

This light comedy is taken from the Claude Tiller novel "My Uncle Benjamin", a family favorite of director Georgi Daneliya. Benjamin (Vakhtang Kikabidze) is the young physician who leads a carefree life. He and his friends drink and dance at the local tavern and take pleasure in the butcher's wife. Levan (S. Zakariadze) is the older doctor who wants Benjamin to marry his daughter, but she runs away with an Army officer. The worried father asks Benjamin to find his daughter and bring her home. He finds her but she dies while giving birth to a child, and the officer is killed in a dual. Benjamin returns with the baby to his hometown, where he is saddened to learn of Levan's demise. At the funeral, Levan watches his family and friends for the last time before he really dies. His last wish is fulfilled as he sees the people who are close to him one last time. This is the only film by Daneliya that is set entirely in his native country of Georgia. ~ Dan Pavlides, Rovi