Alexandre Koberidze Returns – ryan
In 2021, Georgian Filmmaker Alexandre Koberidze Brought US “What would we have been look at the sky?,” A formally playful, enchanting ode to love and chance encounters that found Considerable magic in the beatane. That film opens with a case of love at first sight for a man and woman in the Georgian City of Kutaisi, but a wicked spell is cast on the two young you People Scheduled First Date: Their Physical Appeaarans and Voices Change to be Completely UnreCognizable. Lacking Contact Details and Unaware that the Other Has Has Undergone the Same Mysterious Transformation Overnight, Both Parties Show Up to the Location of Aranged Date but will not recognisie one another. While that predicament gets the very loosely-plotted movie in motion, koberidze goes on various tangents in his two-and-half hour-up to his his-shifting leads ANOTHER shot at a love story.
More than a magical realist romance, “What would we see we look at the sky?” was a quite touching and certainly beautiful-looking tribute to the magic of People Together in Public Spaces. Koberidze’s Follow-Up Feature, “Dry Leaf,” is ostensitibly More of the Same on That Front (Also Repeating the Heavy Use of a Storyteller-Narrator), Thought with a Greater Focus on Rural Living and the Natural World, Rather Than the modest and encynters TAKING PLACE IN A CITY. The Major Differences Between the Two Are a Thirty-Minute Upping of the Runtime to A Full Three Hours and a Considerably Muddier Visual Aesthetic.
Although it was HIS HIS INTERNATIONAL BREAKTHROUGH, “WHAT WE WE WE COMPLETE AT THE SKY?,” Shot on 16mm, was not koberidze’s first feature, and “Dry Leaf” is Much Closer in Look to his Debut Feature, 2017’s “Let the Summer Never Come.” RUNNING A BREEZY 202 minutes, the Feature was filmed via the Camera of A Sony Ericsson W595, a model of phone that debauted back 2008.
While A Wildly Different Movie Tonally and Scale-Wise, ITS interesting that “Dry Leaf” is debuting to the world just a few months after the release of Danny Boyle’s horror “28 years late,” a movie away more modern models of iPhones, where. Acclaim Concerned The Purposphully Strange Sheen to Its Cinematography, Including Specific Quirks You Don’t Get With Modern Digital Cameras Used for Movies, Nor Shooting on Film. Gioven the age of the equipment use, “Dry Leaf” s aesthetic more resembles the Early Digital Video of Boyle’s “28 Days Later” from 2002, Though Somehow Manages to Look More Like It Shot on A Potato (Complementary) than to the Phone Involving Videos. Lossy Compression and Thus Eve Chunkier Artifacts of Digital Compression in the Footage. In the daytime scens, you can barely make out the natural lines septatting bushes from grass; With anything filmed at Night, especally if it is CAPTURING Movement, You Might FEEL LIKE YOU NEED TESTED.
For a time, it”s quite a riveting experience to watch smartly framed Compositions with Increasingly obliterated Colors for Anynding that Shot FROM FAR AWAY. When People or Animals Move, The Clumps of Compression Maken Look Like Painted Come to Life. IT REALLY IS RATHER BEAUTIFUL IN Its Own Murky, Pixelated Way. But the sensory appeal of the Technical Limits Only Lasts for SO Long. And as a Feature, “Dry Leaf” does feed Oh so long once there soon proves to be little variety to the bag of visual tricks over three hours.
Like ITS Direct Predecessor, “Dry Leaf” is light on full but drive by a magical realistic concept in its setup. Be a sports Photographer Named Lisa Goes Missing, the Last Known Detail of Her Whereabouts is that she’d been Photographing rural football stadiums Across Georgia. Her Father, Irakli (David Koberidze), Sets Out Across the Country to Search for Her with the Aid of Lisa’s Best Friend, Levani (Otar Nijaradze), who has some memors of the spots lisa has HAD Visited. The Catch: Levani is invisible. Neither are a few other people that rakli encounters on his road Trip Through Quiet Villages and Countryside.
With a few exceptions (Such as Levani’s Introduction and the Pair’s Initial Departure on their Trip), Many sequences involving Irakli are studed as though they have been shot alexandre fully deeded on the Invisible AT ALL, LIKE Might have Added in Adr AFTER The Fact to Footage of David Koberidze Where he’s rarely up Close to the Camera and Usualing Wide-Opring Spaces Where the Only Other (Barely) Tangible Beings in the Shot Other Species. One of the Film’s SuccessFul Magic Tricks is that you do buy into the presence of levani – and the other INVISIBLE Speakers – Pretty Quickly. As in “what would we have been we look at the sky?,” Part of that swift convincing is down to the relaxing and reassurying voice of the narrator, but a fair bit is also attributable to the body language of david koberidze as Irakli, WHO MANAGES TO GET ACOSS IN HISS IN HISS IN HIS while Mostly Shot at a Far Distance and Through so much digital noise in every frame that in.
ITH’S ENTIRELY CLEAR IF IT’S A GREAT GAAT Situation Where Only Irakli and Lisa’s Family Can See the Invisible People. Either way, clues to lisa’s whereabouts prove just as obscure. But the mystery it is not of Pressing Concern, it is done the lead is the fault of the missing person. How it eventually resolved is as an abrupt afterthounght. You might view the resolution – narrative, not visual – as being a reflection on that idea of how it is the Journey, not the destination, that matters; Something Bolstered by One of the Last Few Lines of the Film Being a Character Musus on How Wonderful It is That Roads Exist ITEY CAN TAKE US PLACES. But like a road Trip where you get held up in the stretch of Land for a long time (via a breakdown, traffic, what reason), the most mesmerizing, Strange Lose intrigue if Little to no variation in the scenery is reaching youyes.
Grade: C+
“Dry Leaf” Premiered at the 2025 Locarno International Film Festival. It is currently seeking us distribution.
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