The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear

The mournful reality of life in post-Soviet Georgia is the subject of this anecdotal documentary by Tinatin Gurchiani, who put out a call for people aged 15-25 to audition for roles in a movie, and then filmed their responses to her disarmingly probing questions, which reveal a pervasive attitude of demoralization resulting from both the country's abject poverty and the shadow of its repeated wars. In some cases, Gurchiani expands on the impromptu interviews by following the subjects to their homes and filming brief segments of their day-to-day lives—including a boy working on his struggling family's small farm, and a young man prevented from joining the army by a criminal conviction who traipses from one friend to another beseeching them to visit his imprisoned brother. The only false note comes near the end, when a young woman confronts her mother, who abandoned the family years earlier; their meeting ends in hysterical weeping that comes across as contrived (especially since the girl is an acting student). But overall this is a moving depiction of the desperation that pervades Georgian society in the aftermath of the fall of the USSR. The title, incidentally, comes from a question about what one might choose to make disappear if the titular machine actually existed. DVD extras include an interview with Gurchiani. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)