Chantrapas

Nicolas is a young Georgian filmmaker whose poetry is misunderstood by the Soviet censors. His film – a fragment of it is from Iosseliani’s own early work – is banned, and Nicolas leaves for Paris. Whether he will have any more artistic freedom there remains to be seen. Basically, little has changed since his childhood, when Nicholas discovered the adventure of photography, only to be ticked off by the adults.
The lighthearted and ironic observations, the melancholy tone and poetic terms are typical of Iosseliani. Even a mermaid becomes a possibility. Especially at the beginning, Chantrapas evokes the mood of the early Georgian films by this filmmaker, who moved to France just like Nicholas. However, Iosseliani does not want to describe it as autobiographical, if only because he was luckier than Nicholas. The title is a play on the French for ‘doesn’t sing’, which became a Russian word for layabout or outsider.

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