In Bloom / Grzeli nateli dgeebi (2013)

Tbilisi, Georgia, 1992: The Soviet era is over and Georgia must fend for itself. Civil war is raging in the province of Abkhazia. For Natia and Eka, the barely fourteen-year-old protagonists of Grzeli nateli dgeebi, childhood is coming to an end. Eka is growing up without her father, rebelling against her concerned mother and her older sister. And Natia’s father, a choleric alcoholic, terrorises the entire family. The two friends cannot find peace outside of the family either – not in school, not on the street, and not in the bread lines. Chaos, insecurity, and fear of what the future might bring hold sway in everyday life. An admirer gives Natia a pistol with one single bullet. A little later, she’s abducted by another admirer. This first feature film by Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Groß takes up the buried traditions of Georgian cinema, weaving together loud and soft, melancholy and missing love, eruptions of violence and a sense of the idyllic, precocious cold-bloodedness and childlike naïveté into a wonderfully rhythmic, exciting cinematic composition. A new generation of filmmakers has emerged in Georgia and is starting out by remembering its own history.

In Bloom is a must see movie about Georgia's recent past. This period has been covered time after time in many movies but none of them compares.

To start with the plot - it's very simple and depicts almost everyone's life in 90s Georgia. Yet it is so well transferred to the screen, I could not tear away. The movie shows every ugliness we have lived through and it was so authentic I could not get rid of a lump in my throat throughout whole film. Small Georgian quirks might be also interesting and funny to a foreign viewer.

Beautifully shot, with every detail taken into consideration. Tbilisi has changed so much in these 20 years and yet the film captured the 90s vibe perfectly.

None of the child actors are professionals but they are doing magnificent job. They are very real and relatable.

Overall it was a brilliant effort, which deserves to be recognized.

IMDB Reviewer

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