Panopticon *** (2024, Data Chachua, Malkhaz Abuladze, Ia Sukhitashvili) – Classic Movie Review 13,802

Data Chachua stars as an introverted teen who befriends a right-wing activist and the boy’s mother after his own parents abandon him, in the 2024 Georgian drama film Panopticon.

Panopticon is a 2024 Georgian drama film written and directed by George Sikharulidze in his feature debut. It helps to know that a Panopticon is a circular prison with cells arranged around a central well, from which prisoners can be observed. This should encourage us to watch the film, observing closely, rather than put us off.

Data Chachua stars as the teenage introvert Sandro, an isolated loner who finds himself deprived of the fundamental certainties of life and love when his father (Malkhaz Abuladze) decides to devote his life to God and leaves for a nearby monastery high on a hill to become a monk.

Panopticon is a thoughtful, deep thinking, multi-layered soulful drama, austere, haunting and emotionally distressing, with a fine central performance, and several other good ones. It’s all about the boy. He seems to be looking for God, or for sex, or a cause to fight for, but actually he’s desperately looking for love and a role model, and they prove hard, maybe impossible, for him to find. It’s not a happy story, but it is a good one, engrossingly told, with the camerawork constantly pulling you into the situations and dilemmas and heart breaks.

Abandoned by his father and his mother (Maia Gelovani), who is working abroad, and living with and caring for his grandmother (Ketevan Shervashidze), Sandro embarks on a journey of self-discovery, opening up to a new friendship with the radical Lasha (Vakho Kedeladze), who has ties with an ultra-right organisation, and whose mother Natalia (Ia Sukhitashvili) is a sympathetic hairdresser, another lost soul, while also having the chance to explore his own ideas, beliefs and sexuality. He kind of falls for Lasha and then also his mother Natalia. He doesn’t know what he wants, he is only seeking. He is really just window shopping. But then, when he breaks out into the real world, getting involved with ultra-right protestors, he gets badly hurt. Eventually, though, maybe he will find. Maybe.

Truffaut’s Les Quattre Cents Coups is accessed. It is no surprise that Data Chachua looks like its hero Jean-Pierre Leaud.

As per the definition of a Panopticon, the intellectual film ambitiously examines the clash between traditional values of religious conservatism and nationalism on the one hand and radical values of modernisation and autonomy on the other in troubled post-Soviet Georgian society. It explores the boundaries between watching and being watched, as well as ideas of sexuality and friendship, and comments on the uncertain direction of Georgian society. That is quite a stretch at only 95 minutes, but manages it with style and grace.

Filming took place in Tbilisi, the capital and largest city of Georgia, in summer of 2022. It premiered at the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on 30 June 2024.

The film is produced by Vladimer Katcharava and coproduced by Olivier Chantriaux Anamaria Antoci and Luca Cabriolu.

The score is by Chiara Costanza.

Georgia was invaded and annexed by the Red Army in 1921 and became one of the republics of the Soviet Union. But in the 1980s, an independence movement grew quickly, leading to Georgia’s secession from the Soviet Union in April 1991.

Cast: Data Chachua, Malkhaz Abuladze, Ia Sukhitashvili. Paata Kvlividze, Eka Mzhavanadze, Giorgi Gio Tabidze, Salome Gelenidze.

Duration: 95 minutes.

Production: 20 Steps Productions, Ombre Rosse Film Production, Tangaj Production, Independent Film.

© Derek Winnert 2025 – Classic Movie Review 13,802

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.comProject, Filmo 2