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| Director Alexandre Koberidze |
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| camera on the set |
DRY LEAF B Georgia (186 mi) 2025 d: Alexandre Koberidze
Keep going straight to the end of the road and you’ll find it.
Intentionally shot blurry and slightly out of focus with an old 2008 Sony Ericsson W595 mobile phone that ceased production in 2011, much like his debut feature LET THE SUMMER NEVER COME AGAIN (2017), which was shot with the same camera, this long and meandering film, split into two parts, is a journey in itself, where it’s radically different than anything else you’ll see in theaters, requiring patience and an eye for detail, as we’re seeing everything with unspoiled eyes, like revisiting old photographs, where the one thing you learn here is that it’s not about the final destination, but about the journey itself. The time spent with this film is an invaluable experience, as the continual blurriness alters our perspective, making us see things differently. With compliments to Kiarostami’s WHERE IS MY FRIEND’S HOUSE? (1987) and his short film ROADS OF KIAROSTAMI (2005), much of this is spent in rural roadsides, off the beaten path, where the slower pace of life is simply different, becoming not just a road movie, but the inner journey of a man who unwittingly discovers himself, while at the same time it’s an investigative film that challenges the perceptions of viewers, becoming a meditation on Georgian life and landscapes, where at one point a worldly uncle recalls Georgia’s history of Soviet Occupation. In this culture, it’s not uncommon to approach strangers, or visit unknown homes, where the greeting is always friendly, while in America these days, that kind of behavior could get you shot, as people are so distrustful and suspicious of strangers, yet in the 50’s and 60’s, even in America people left their doors unlocked, as there was no fear that anything bad would happen. From the maker of 2022 Top Ten List #7 What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? (2021), which was distinctly unique, where the connecting thread to this film is an obsessive passion with soccer, with an explicit homage to Messi, and by the end even Maradona appears. The outstanding sound design and musical accompaniment is by the director’s brother Giorgi, who also scored his earlier film, a mix of electronic and classical tones, creating a leitmotif accompanying various moments of the journey, perfectly balancing the unique visual experience with an equally original musical counterpoint, where watching this is very much like watching a silent film. Written, directed, edited, and shot by Koberidze, a director who has always displayed a predilection for acute observation, this is an impressionistic film to get immersed into, feeling like a transformative journey exploring the interaction between humans and their environment, featuring the heavy use of a storyteller-narrator, initially screening at the Locarno Film Festival, which is known for taking on more adventurous projects that mainstream festivals aren’t interested in, receiving a Jury special mention and the Fipresci prize, where you may not find anything else like this in your lifetime, so that by itself is invaluable. Due to the extreme aesthetic, however, this will probably not be found in theaters and may only be shown at film festivals.
Growing up in Tbilisi during the post-Soviet era, Georgian citizens often endured long periods of electricity blackouts, where just learning to survive was the main thing. Graduating from the German Film and Television Academy in Berlin (DFFB), Koberidze contributes writings on cinema to various publications, actively engaging in film criticism and theory. Like an experimental cinema exercise, the film’s hazy images evoke memories of another time, taking us into a place we’ve never been, challenging viewers in ways unlike other films, capturing the pre-smartphone mindset, when people had a tendency to look around more and actually see their environment, requiring a mental adjustment, where another connecting thread of all Koberidze’s films is that they are full of digressions. Essentially a father, Irakli (the director’s father David Koberidze), scours the rural countrysides in his Subaru van in search of his missing daughter Lisa, a 28-year old sports photographer who was on assignment photographing abandoned football fields in small communities for a sports magazine, but who has gone missing, albeit intentionally, leaving a note behind not to worry, asking not to be followed, yet after a month passes without a word, fatherly impulses kick in as he tries to retrace her journey in search of football fields in rural villages across Georgia, many of which have been overgrown by wild grass. A largely internalized journey, finding himself in the same places his daughter has been, the father astutely reflects, “Seeing the same things, even if not at the same time, is a kind of togetherness.” With the help of the magazine editor Levani (Otar Nijaradze), who just happens to be invisible, yes, that’s right, invisible, as are many others in these remote communities who are questioned throughout the quest, heard but not seen, while others are completely visible, remaining something of a mystery for viewers, like a ghostly aspect, where the past mingles with the present in a relationship that suggests so much of our lives remains hidden and out of sight, even to us, where the past is simply forgotten. In reference to the title, the director has acknowledged in the Director's Note, “In football, a ‘dry leaf’ is a kick with an unpredictable landing of the ball – much like our characters who surrender to the journey and trust the wind to lead them.” Going further, “In the late 1950’s, Brazilian footballer Didi introduced a technique for kicking the ball called the ‘dry leaf.’ Just as a dry leaf falls from a tree and it’s impossible for the human eye to calculate where it will land, with this technique it’s impossible for the goalkeeper to predict the exact trajectory of the ball. The thing is, it remains a mystery for the shooter as well. Try to remember a leaf falling from above––how it changes direction and speed, sometimes dropping fast and straight to the ground, only for everything to shift suddenly. It begins to hover slowly and calmly before changing its path again, and so on, depending on the height, the wind, the humidity, and countless other factors we’re not even aware of. Even when it reaches the ground, the leaf’s journey isn’t over — a gust of wind or a little boy on his way to school might carry it to a different neighborhood, or someone might sweep it into a bag with thousands of other leaves and send it to a place where leaves are burned.”
The way the camera lingers over its subjects and its absurd use of humor recalls the great Georgian filmmaker Otar Iosseliani, maker of BRIGANDS: CHAPTER SEVEN (1996) and FAREWELL, HOME SWEET HOME (1999), who studied under the great Russian/Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko, where repression under the Soviet regime caused him to eventually seek exile in France, as the lingering effect of Russian influence is an invisible force hovering over Koberidze’s films, where the past is always present. Part of the director’s interaction with invisible characters came about as he was traveling through the rural areas and found it difficult to approach strangers to ask them to appear in his film, so the idea of invisibility allowed him to film more freely, unencumbered by added pressures. Essentially a landscape road movie with various strangers appearing or interacting at different intervals along the way, as even the faces of the protagonists are a blur, blending into a constantly changing landscape, where the length of the film matters, as it allows viewers to adjust to the rhythms and idiosyncrasies of what they’re watching, using the camera as an unseen character, becoming a mesmerizing experience in the theater, as viewers never know what to expect. As the scenery shifts from city to countryside, trees, grass, apples, as well as horses, donkeys, cows, cats, and dogs appear more frequently, producing entirely different sounds, like the chirping of birds, or the humming of insects, yet what drives the film is the element of surprise, the curiosity to unravel the family mystery and unlock just what happened to the missing daughter, where only fragments of her presence are detected, which may feel slight for a three-hour film, and it does get repetitive, but it’s a meandering journey that accentuates spontaneity in the moment, honing in on tiny details that would otherwise be easily overlooked, like a cup placed next to a waterfall to allow passers-by to drink. The camera lingers on changing landscapes at different hours of the day, with varying shades of light, capturing empty fields, cows grazing, dilapidated goalposts, or none at all, while speaking to children playing football along the way, creating a temporal rhythm and visual texture that is entirely its own. The emphasis on the ruins of goalposts mirrors the use of already obsolete camera technology, where the aesthetic matches the subject matter, as so much of our lives simply fades away over time. With the destruction of soccer fields to make way for the construction of new hotels, “Where would you play after the football field is demolished?” a young boy is asked. “Everywhere,” he responds enthusiastically. Just when you think all hope is lost, a series of events mysteriously alter our perspective, with a resolution happening offscreen, suggesting not all mysteries need to be solved. Literally defying trends in HD and 4K filmmaking, challenging the direction of where cinema is heading, this is radical yet old-school filmmaking, an immersive sensory experience that creeps up on you, providing a mirror of ourselves, as if existing between reality and a dream, recalling Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s UNCLE BOONMEE WHO CAN RECALL HIS PAST LIVES (2010), with the camera essentially inhabiting the subjectivity of a ghostly state of mind.
