April

Bluesky

It’s not unusual to say that something cuts through the silence but in Dea Kulumbegashvili’s April it’s the silence that cuts through us. Both it and negative space are weaponised by the Georgian director’s character study of obstetrician gynecologist Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili), who in addition to helping children into the world in the hospital where she works, also carries out secret abortions for desperate women in rural areas, which though not strictly outlawed, are hard to come by and considered religiously shameful.

Kulumbegashvili’s study of Nina’s psyche goes beyond the intensity of watching her go about her business to a creature we meet in the film’s opening scenes, which – and this is wide open to viewer interpretation – may well represent her inner conflict and feelings of guilt. It’s a strange and sagging faceless creation, humanoid but with skin folding in disturbing ways, its ragged breathing working in that weaponised silence to unnerve.

The contrast between the watery liminal space it inhabits and what comes next – full-on footage of a live birth – is acute and it is these sorts of junctures which the writer/director exploits throughout. There are moments like this which feel like a visual and sensory onslaught, while in other scenes, it is what we cannot see which holds the tension, such as one end of a kitchen table on which a Deaf pregnant girl (Roza Kancheishvili) is lying, having become that way for reasons that lurk queasily in the background.

The main plot concerns the delivery of a stillborn child, for which Nina faces an internal inquiry to be held by her colleague – and former/potential lover – David (Kakha Kintsurashvili), with concerns about her extracurricular services driving the actions of her boss (Merab Ninidze) as much as any desire for justice.

The elemental is to the fore in this film, in those watery first moments, in a field of poppies that seems transported from Oz or as we watch storm clouds sweep in. The way they are captured by cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan suggests a certain majesty, but a sense of darker primal aspects is never far away. From the early unsteady breathing of the creature, Kulumbegashvili shows a Jonathan Glazer-like aptitude for making us tune into the sounds, whether its dogs barking or wild spaces buzzing with life or the stressed-out woodwind of Matthew Herbert’s score.

When silence comes, it doesn’t do anything so delicate as hang in the air, preferring to flex its muscles instead. The emotional state of this film is extreme anxiety, conveyed in a multitude of ways. In one scene it’s the simple act of a stuck car that ratchetts the tension in others it’s the tiny motions of the camera in what is otherwise a static shot that generate a quivery unease. The anxiety feels even more emphasised by Nina’s risk taking, not just in her work but her personal interactions, which constantly flirt with danger. Riven with ambiguity, what you think about the intellectual questions around women’s autonomy raised are likely to vary, but April’s emotion will drill its way into your bones.

Source