BLUE MOUNTAINS, OR AN UNBELIEVABLE STORY at FOMO Cinema Tbilisi

Eldar Shengelaia | 1983 | Georgia (USSR) | 1h37m | Presented in the original Georgian audio with English subtitles

One of the great Georgian comedies, BLUE MOUNTAINS turns Soviet bureaucracy into absurdist farce. A writer brings his manuscript to a publishing house and waits for someone, anyone, to read and approve it. Instead he is passed from desk to desk while the office around him drifts deeper into chaos. What makes the film so good is its exactness. This is not a broad cartoon about inefficiency. It is a very precise film about institutions that continue functioning long after they have stopped doing anything useful. Eldar Shengelaia turns delay, distraction, routine and official indifference into the whole subject of the film, and he does it with real wit to deliver a portrait of a system so numb that even collapse barely interrupts the working day.

WHY IT’S INCLUDED IN THIS WEEK’S PROGRAM;

The film is widely regarded as one of the defining satirical works of late Soviet Georgian cinema. BLUE MOUNTAINS deserves to be seen not simply as a local classic, but as a major work of Soviet era satire. It's funny, maddening and painfully recognizable.

LOCATION: FOMO Secret Cinema, Bazari Orbeliani, Tbilisi. A five minute walk from Liberty Square metro.

HOW TO FIND FOMO: Enter Bazari Orbeliani via Atoneli St above Carrefour and take the stairs on your left to the first floor. You can also check our Instagram story highlights for a video showing exactly how to find us:
https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17933106294029235/