il ragazzino è eccezionale, uguale a tutti gli scugnizzi del mondo, non si dimentica, mi ha ricordato un po' il ragazzino di "Paisà", e il film è davvero ben pensato e girato.
imperdibile, promesso - Ismaele
… Both in overall structure and in specific scenes (such as a dance in the forest), the pic self-consciously recalls Elem Klimov's "Come and See" (1985). Although "The Other Bank" is admittedly nowhere near as galvanizing, it does offer some impressively wrought scenes that approximate the unique blend of surrealism and horror that distinguishes Klimov's masterpiece: A tense sequence as Tedo crosses the border and an interlude in which two seemingly friendly car thieves who give Tedo a lift turn out to be much more sinister than expected.
… this is a
sympathetic tale of a young boy displaced by the Georgian-Abkhazian conflict,
with nothing to live for in a bleak part of Tbilisi (the capital of Georgia).
He does not go to school, and his mother essentially sells herself to powerful
but dubious characters. At first Tedo hangs out with unscrupulous characters;
but, on the verge of turning into Oliver Twist, Tedo decides instead to set off
to Tkvarcheli (Тҟəарчал/ტყვარჩელი) in Abkhazia to search for his long lost father.
Which is just about the most dangerous thing any person can do these days
(short of making your way towards northwest Pakistan or insurgent-heavy parts
of Iraq or going to Chechnya for a holiday). Let alone a kid…
… While this
appears to be a distinctly Georgian film, in that it is set in Georgia and
Abkhazia and features the specific realities of the country, it is also one
that involves creative ‘above the line’ contributions from professionals that
belong to no less than seven other national cinematic traditions, none of which
is Western. Kazakh Sain Gabdullin co-produced the film with Ovashvili, while Kyrgyz Marat Sarulu acted as an associate producer. The adaptation of the novel was assisted
by Rustam Ibragimbekov, a screenwriting
veteran of Soviet cinema responsible for classics such as Beloe solnce pustyni (White Sun of the Desert, 1970), who is based in Baku, Azerbaijan today.
The cinematography of the film is by Iranian Shahriar Assadi, best known for his work
on Bahman Ghobadi’s Turtles Can’t Fly (2005), the sound mixing — by CzechIvo Heder, while Jew Israel David is listed as score recordist.
When he came to think of editing
the film, Ovashvili noticed that two of his favorite films, Kim Ki-duk’s The Coast Guard (Hae anseon, 2002) and Bong Joon-ho’s Memories of Murder (Salinui chueok, 2003) shared the same editor,
award-winning Sun-min Kim. Clearly, a South Korean editor
would be out of reach for a director based in Tbilisi in these turbulent times,
be it just for the sake of the differences in language and the geographical
distance. Nonetheless, George Ovashvili decided to use an e-mail address he
found on the Internet and tried contacting Sun-min Kim by sending a message
into cyberspace following the principle ‘if you do not try, you do not know,’
yet without expecting much. To his great surprise, however, he soon received a
reply from the editor who was amazed that someone from a remote and isolated
country like Georgia may know of her work and may be interested to work with
her. When it transpired that the Georgian director’s budget cannot accommodate
the usual fee that the editor would work for, she even agreed to reduce
substantially, and worked on the project for a whole month in Tbilisi, giving
it her full attention and dedication…
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