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Whatever the “art cinema” these days – and it can be a lot, a lot – it is an endangered species in a hard commercial environment. To survive, many filmmakers withdrew to various degrees of conservatism and prudence. That's why April is such an inspiring anomaly: this second feature of the Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili is without compromise both in the theme and in style.
Kulumbegashvili took a tour with his beginnings in 2020 BeginningA nightmarish drama located in a community of Jehovah's Witnesses. In April – With the author star Luca Guadagnino among his producers – Kulumbegashvili pushes the boat even further, starting with the enigmatic and disturbing opening shooting. It shows a naked silhouette without face and with a body apparently of clay, wading slowly in a black lake in the dark.
Most of the film follows a realistic, also stylized path. Nina (IA Sukhitashvili) is an obstetrics doctor in a provincial Georgian hospital. She is first seen at the birth of a new baby – obviously a real delivery, drawn directly from above – but spends a large part of her time driving in a neighboring village, where she provides care and abortions to women in poor families. Sometimes, she ends up on impromptu sex meetings, one of which ends abruptly – but, unfortunately, without any other comment.
When a newborn in the hospital dies, Nina is held responsible. His colleague David (Kakha Kintsurashvili) must investigate; But he is also her ex-partner, unable to understand why she chose to continue her vocation rather than starting a life with him or someone else.
This is a film of a few words, the Wan, often illegible Sukhitashvili suggesting both fragility and self-posed control; People tend to speak or to Nina, whose opaque silence is the basic note of the film. Neither April He himself gives a lot. Its theme is very resonant at a time when abortion as a practice is under intense attack, but rather than telling a transparent and pômaine story, Kulumbegashvili adopts an oblique approach. It highlights an austere style, sometimes disorienting. The rooms, taken from one end, the other, seem abnormally elongated. In a prolonged sequence, the camera drifts up from a close -up of grass in the rain until we saw Nina's car at the stadium at the distant end on a muddy road, tight in a corner of the screen.
Then there is the recurring creature, not quite formed – apparently an incarnation of Nina herself, or thus photos of POV and an insistent sound of breathing would suggest. But it is not easy to give a clear meaning on this figure: the film leaves it to our interpretation and our anxious imagination.
You could easily imagine April Written in a gallery as a video art: part of its brilliance is in tension, it maintains between narration and a hardcore commitment to imagine. Fans of this almost elusive “slow cinema” could detect affinities with directors such as Béla Tarr, Carlos Reygadas or Tardif Chantal Akerman. But Kulumbegashvili explores his own path a lot here, without fear.
★★★★★
In British cinemas of April 25
