"Some Traditions are Good, Others Should Be Forgotten"

While Georgian cinema of the last two decades has often been preoccupied with the armed conflicts that ensued the gaining of the country’s independence in 1991, the newest films coming from Georgia show a strong interest in the position and the perspective of women in Georgian society. In 2017 alone, three female-focused and explicitly feminist films reached an international audience; dealing with the overwhelming toll motherhood often takes and what happens when women decide to overcome this toll were Scary Mother (Sashishi deda, 2017) by Ana Urushadze, portraying a middle-aged housewife desperate to emancipate herself through a writing career, as well as My Happy Family (Chemi bednieri ojakhi, 2017) by the two directors Nana Ekvtimishvili and Simon Groß telling a story of a woman learning how to be alone, and at least partially free, after decades of fulfilling the imposed norms of what a mother should be.

Dede (2017) by Maria Khatchavani, awarded the FIPRESCI prize at the 15th Golden Apricot Yerevan International Film Festival, also takes on the subject of motherhood, but depicts it in the light of even more traditionally rooted perceptions of women. Set in 1992, the film starts off with an image of soldiers returning home from war, but it soon turns the lens to a love triangle. David (Nukri Khatchavani) and Gegi (George Babluani), who became good friends on the frontline, return to David’s home village, Ushguli, a remote mountain community in north-western Georgia lying at an altitude of more than 2000 meters, only to realize that Dina (Natia Vibliani)—promised to David through an arranged marriage—and Gegi fell in love in one of their previous encounters of the village.

In a rapid course of events David, ridden with shame that would befall his family and thus unwilling to break the engagement, commits suicide. After being absolved from David’s death, Gegi leaves Ugshuli with Dina and the film jumps ahead five years when they’re living a calm family life with a son in a similarly remote mountainous settlement. Still, Dina’s tragic fate seems to be predestined—Gegi dies a violent death while trying to reach Usghuli after Dina’s grandmother passes away. Although still mourning, she is once again facing an unwanted marriage. This time, it is her childhood friend Girshel (Girshel Chelidze) who proclaims her his wife to be. Being forced to remarry by the repressive tradition, the breaking of which usually means bloodshed, Dina goes to live with Girshel but also has to leave her son with the family of her first husband, since they claim him as their only offspring left.

Dede’s storyline may not be very complex, but it is the patient and careful observation of how Dina’s strong spirit manages to survive between the intertwining anger and uneasy compromises that she as a woman has to accept in order to avoid violence considered part of natural law in her community. The film is very critical of the violence, as it is of the arranged marriages and bride kidnappings. Yet Dina is not portrayed as someone that wants to abandon tradition altogether, but simply wants to obtain her dignity as a woman and a steady life for her child. Even more so, Dede, although taking a strong feminist stand against the repressive practices, delivers a detailed and non-binary insight into the traditional ways of the region, and the director’s effort in introducing these elevates the film artistically.

The film takes time to observe the everyday scenes of life in the community; from the traditional interior of homes, washing sheep in the river, preparing wool, making candles, to various peculiar superstitions and related rituals, the camera retains an almost anthropological gaze that is both respectful and wonderfully raw. Khatchavani worked with a mostly non-professional cast that could speak the specific Svanesh dialect and the title “Dede” actually means “mother” in this same dialect. We can hear folk music and traditional lullabies being played and sung, while the surrounding colossal mountain terrain is thoughtfully used to emphasize the menacing nature that defines the communities there. The images of heavy sky and mountains dwarfing the people in the villages—for example, the scene of an ant-like funeral procession winding under the slope of a snowy mountain—slowly build an omnipotent fatalistic mood.

Summing up the film could be the words of the young local priest that Girshel asks for advice before taking Dina as his wife: “Some traditions are good, others should be forgotten.” Still, the compromises having to be made when bad traditions are not abandoned, mostly fall on women and even more so, mothers, and this is the main thought Dede leaves the viewers with.

Petra Meterc