"Exploring the Emotional Landscapes of 'Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry': A Deep Dive into Elene Naveriani's Third Film"

In a remote village in Georgia, Etero leads a seemingly tranquil life: she runs a little shop that provides household cleaning supplies for the community. As she talks to her customers and neighbours of all ages and backgrounds, and between sometimes genuine, sometimes not so much, dialogues and/or gossips, Etero’s everyday is driven by her strong sense of independence.

Yet, as at the beginning Etero stages her own imaginary death, the audience find themselves entangled in a spectrum of emotions that stand at the antipodes. One day, she takes a leap of perspective: suddenly and unsparingly, she decides to love, as it never happened in 48 years. The illicit affair with her goods’ distributor, Murman, opens up a new space of self-discovery that will continue far beyond the end of the film. 

In her third feature length film, Elene Naveriani delicately explores the richness of a woman’s universe whose life is only on the surface ordinary, and, perhaps, even shabby and meaningless, according to some of her acquaintances’ perception of her.

The film’s striking charm lies in the way it combines its meditative tone with the protagonist’s progressing eventful trajectory. Exquisite framing and colour scheme choices particularly exalt the spectacular, literal and metaphorical, in the most unexpected sites. Eka Chavleishvili (Etero) portrays exceptionally her character’s unique liberated outlook on the world and is matched by the correspondingly nuanced performance of Murmur by Temiko Chichinadze, just as the ensemble of actors/characters around them deliver stylishly both the pettiest and the grandest aspects of the human condition.

Life is full of surprises, and, aren’t, after all, the breathtaking beauty of a blackbird and the sweetness of a blackberry awaiting us all?