My first Georgian movie
The pandemic has made me expand my horizons beyond the known French, Italian Foreign language movies.
The availability of such movies online has made it easy for me to enter into homes and lives otherwise unknown.
What is remarkable is that feelings, emotions, struggles are the same everywhere.
Love, Pain, Hurt, Anger are language agnostic!
As usual, I watch foreign language movies with no expectations, just to listen to the different audio and read hopefully the translation which captures the essence of the movie.
Very often the acting is enough to bring out the crux and emotions conveyed
The story begins with a 50 year old woman Mañana house hunting. She seems to be ok with a not so ok run down apartment on the outskirts of a town and does not question the owner/ caretaker regarding the repairs and mess the place is in.
Next it shifts to a loud crowded household, where trivial things she likes are not allowed, something pleasurable like eating cake is frowned upon. Even daily dressing is not a private affair.
Leaving you wondering if the house she has seen is for her parents/ her husband and herself or for her married daughter and son in law or for the son who is in college.
As the story progresses and Mañana moves out of home leaving her aged parents whose house they live in, her husband, her daughter , son in law and son. She lives alone managing with her teachers income.
Her decision is made firm when the student tells her teacher about her decision to walk out on an unequal marriage. It is a case of the teacher learning from her student.
Manana never left her family or husband because of physical abuse or infidelity. She feels suffocated. She lacks freedom.
We come to learn how others around her try to control her life, including her brother, her mother who guilt trips her saying she had a ready made nanny in her which allowed her to pursue her job .
Even after moving out physically, she is emotionally available for her children, her parents, her husband still in shock on what has changed in his life
How a chance school reunion discloses a 14 year old secret which shocks her.
How she stands up to her beliefs, her decision, and reasoning appeals to you and the viewer is left applauding the strength of her character.
It is a strong female centric movie, with the story being any woman’s story in any developing country, Namely India, the markets, streets, homes are eerily similar to places we have grown up in
Even an independent thinking, financially stable woman is not allowed freedom of thought and speech and action in many households. She is never respected for the knowledge or position or wealth she brings in.
We see Mañana enjoying the silence, solitude, enjoying her piece of cake, listening to music she loves. This speaks volumes about the freedom she has finally gained.
The man, lesser in every way, gains that respect and freedom just for being man. A patriarchal society, so common to most of us.
The movie ends with a conversation with her husband with unanswered questions about his indifference and her brothers patronising ways which no one questions.
Few break the shackles, few take that courageous step to divorce their family.
Few decide to live their lives and not die while still breathing.
How have you lived your life?
My Happy Family (Chemi Bednieri Ojakhi)
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