Wine, the Sacred, and Everyday Life: On the Sixtiers and the Georgian supra

Joanna WOJNICKA

Instytut Sztuk Audiowizualnych, Wydział Zarządzania i Komunikacji Społecznej, Uniwersytet Jagielloński, ul. prof. St. Łojasiewicza 4, 30-348 Kraków, Poland , Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0125-8866

Abstract

The article discusses Otar Iosseliani’s feature debut movie Falling Leaves of 1966. Georgian-born, Iosseliani is a representative of the generation of Soviet intelligentsia called the “Sixtiers.” He was also among the Soviet film directors who were proponents of the so-called national schools of film-making. The poetics of Iosseliani’s movies is rooted in the documentary approach, and the view of reality they convey is indeed of documentary nature; however, in the Falling Leaves, he combines his documentary viewpoint with a subtle yet clear reference to his native culture, which determines the ethnic identity of the Georgian people within the Soviet state. His recourse to the emblematic elements of the Georgian tradition, i.e., wine and feast (supra), enables a look at the mid-sixties in the Soviet Union which is discreet (hidden behind the pseudo-documentary poetics), occasionally ironic and occasionally poetic, yet certainly devoid of any idealism.

Translated by Dorota Chabrajska

Keywords:

the Georgian tradition, wine, feast (supra), Georgian cinematography, the Sixtiers, Otar Iosseliani