April

Watched at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

Firstly, I do appreciate Dea Kulumbegashvili creating a very complex story about abortion and the complexity behind as the topic is highly controversial yet intriguing. Approaching this narrative in this modern time is quite ballsy and dare I say, quite powerful. Previously, I have enjoyed Kulumbegashvili's debut "Beginning" and with this new feature, Kulumbegashvili continues to demonstrate her groundbreaking talents and the beauty of cinema.

Presented with great sound designs and interesting writing, the narrative explores some great concepts and interesting atmospheres mixed of drama and at times, horror-like elements. The camerawork is some of the most beautiful camerawork I have seen in some time with some colorful moments and shots that are still burned into my memory. Alongside with great performances that enhances the realism of it's setting and tone.

Kulumbegashvili understands realism, and using her direction, she creates some really great long take sequences, dialogue dynamics and atmospheres. However, what stops the movie from beginning masterful is some of the tedious structure as with it's narrative, the pacing does feel uneven within itself and despite having good performances, character wises, I found myself wanting a bit more from the characters and I didn't really fully engage with them. And probably because I love Michael Haneke, certain moments and tone felt a bit way too similar to Haneke's work which does feel a bit distracting.

Despite my gripes, no denying that this movie is ballsy, dark and quite the depressing observation. You gotta give credit to Kulumbegashvili for making this.

The movie has deep ideas about social problems, but unclear direction makes it hard to watch. There's also completely unnecessary nudity, which feels meaningless and adds nothing.

The director talks about problem but doesn't offer any solution. I understand that it's a complex topic, but simply showing the problem doesn't hep to explain or ease it.

The long static shots make movie boring. I don't understand why director chose to keep one frame for almost minute. I also didn't understand horror-like. Maybe it was meant to visualize the main actress's sins but it felt a bit cringe.

Unfortunately this is another disappointed movie from Georgia.

The film demands patience-over two hours of slow, quiet, drawn-out establishing shots for maybe 30 minutes of actual narrative. When every scene is paced the same, the emotional weight of any individual moment is diluted. The nudity is excessive and distracting; we see the protagonist's breasts nearly as often as her face, with no symbolic or narrative justification. Multiple landscape shots focus mainly on the sky, which fails to establish a meaningful sense of place. The film ultimately feels self-indulgent and hollow. I would not recommend, unless 3/4 of the film had been left on the editing floor.