The new movie by Georgy Paradzhanov (nephew of Sergey Paradzhanov) “All gone” has been called the brightest cinema phenomenon of summer 2012. It participated in the contest “Prospects” of the 34th Moscow international film festival and took the grand-prize in Vyborg “Window to Europe.”
Critics have noted several leading characters in the movie. The city – director leads us through Tbilisi, watches through windows of houses where each family appears to be happy or unhappy. Very different people – Paradzhanov shows chronicles of their lives: marriages and funerals, love and mystic ties. However, the main character of the film is thought to be an atmosphere, but not the plot. The camera is a separate character which watches not people and events, but fragrances, sounds, colors, and wind movements. As Profcinema critics state, “a memory-image becomes crucial for the character of the movie, opening space for cinema time-image. The memory-image is expressed in fantasies, dreams, déjà-vu, meetings with other characters which seem to be plain, but in “All Gone” they exist and appear according to different rules. The memory-image is directly connected with the past in any moment of perception (it is a virtual image), and cinema crystallizes it making the real and the imagined, the past and the present, the acute and the virtual equal. Paradzhanov’s movie is an interesting game of these notions: the audience is deepened into the system of the memory-image from the very beginning, and the character is slowly moving to the last point.”
The director told about the movie himself: “This is a film about return to the city of the character’s childhood after 20 years. Unfortunately, he doesn’t find anyone alive there. He appears in his destroyed (or it is better to say “shabby”) house, and his childhood passes in front of his eyes in memory during the whole movie. At the end he comes to fortune-teller Nina. It is a mystic character, and Lore, Tonino Guerra’s wife, had to play it. Tonino had to cast in my film and play an old tram-driver. It is not his blame, but he let us down, and Lora had to quit too. But I have found an outstanding actress who played fortune-teller Nina, but she is an old blind woman. People come to Nina in morning and tell her their bad dreams. Nina bottles them up and says: “Your dream is gasping.” And in the end these bottles choked her. The leading character comes to her and says: “Nina I came to you to tell my last dream.” She said: “Please, don’t. Help me to die. Neither the sky nor earth welcomes me.” He says: “What can I do?” She says: “Open the bottles to make dreams return to people, as it seems nobody dreams these days.” And then he opens bottles and she says: “Thank you. Thank you, Harry.” And then she’s gone.”
Answering the question “What do you expect from Moscow Premiere?” Paradzhanov said: “Like any other director – why should I be cunning? – I expect that my film will be watched with pleasure and people will like it. Our profession means that everybody cannot like me. Some people like caramel, others – chocolate. I had no target to shoot a movie for receive appreciation of someone. I did an honest and direct thing. Of course I would like my movie to be recognized, just like every director. I don’t believe when a director says: “I shoot films for myself.” It is not true.”
In early December “All Gone” will go to the international cinema festival in Tbilisi. “One of the leading characters was played by phenomenal Avto Makharadze who played in Confession. He came to me and said: “I want this role.” – “You know I want to give it to you.” And we say goodbye. He came at nights and shouted: “I have thought about one more color!” It was a midnight and he shouted so loudly that the whole district heard. You know Saakashvili lives there. Actors and the Moscow team worked brilliantly. Bravo to them!
Now I am nervous about Georgia. I am more excited about Georgia than if I were nominated for Oscar. Georgians are very artistic. If you say “Play!” something crazy happens. My morning started from taking a megaphone and saying “My friends, today we don’t play, we have a rehearsal.” Then I hinted to Sergey Machilsky and he shot rehearsals. When I said “Action!” something crazy happened. That is why I said they: we don’t shoot. And Georgia is certainly more important for me than Oscar.”
