Holy Electricity

A scrapyard as a playground, a street vendor’s stand as a dance floor, a parking lot as a picnic spot. Tato Kotetishvili’s debut feature, Holy Electricity, offers a mesmerising blend of sociorealism and surrealism, capturing moments that are humorous yet bitter, both eccentric and endearing. Set in Tbilisi, the film follows the lives of an unusual duo: Nika, a tall and slender introverted young man who documents his surroundings with a video camera and can play wind instruments even with his nostrils, and his short, stout, and debt-ridden transgender uncle Nodo. The two, reminiscent of modern-day Laurel and Hardy, roam the streets, entangling themselves in mischief as Nika's coming-of-age parallels Nodo's midlife crisis. Nika is too shy to confess his love to a Roma coffee vendor, while Nodo gambles in a futile attempt to repay his mounting debts. Like other residents of the city, they all persist and find ways to flourish, whether through dance, music, companionship with humans and animals, or their dry, deadpan humour.

One of the film's most iconic scenes features a giant slab of concrete suddenly crashing onto a discarded car, the roof crumpling further under the weight. This moment encapsulates the impromptu nature of Nika and Nodo's universe: tyres salvaged from junked vehicles become a makeshift sofa, perfect for lounging and cloud-watching; a wrecked car with a shattered window transforms into the site of a morbid photoshoot; a doorless white drink machine found in the scrapyard is repurposed as a throne for Nika. Transparent plastic bags, once opened and laid out on a car bonnet, are reborn as picnic plates for bread, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Their discovery of a box filled with rusty metal crosses propels their improvisation to a new level — they add light bulbs and neon acrylic panels to the crosses, place one on Nika’s father’s grave, and attempt to sell them door-to-door. While the idea of selling portable neon crucifixes might sound absurd, in contemporary Georgia, gigantic neon crucifixes already dot the landscape, atop building blocks and hills. In a country where the Orthodox Church has served as a psychological anchor for many since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the sight of a priest stepping on a stool to leave a black cross mark on a ceiling with candle fire is not as far-fetched as it might seem.

Kotetishvili, having worked as a cinematographer for nearly two decades, brings a striking precision to his compositions. Quite often, the frames are perfectly centered, capturing the solemn image of a deceased person being mourned, flanked by rows of mourners on either side, all in a visually balanced composition. Other central frames include two elderly men discussing wrestling in a dimly lit room, a door letting in a sliver of light, or shots through a window that position Nika and Nodo’s car — where they sleep on the reclined front seats — directly in the middle of the frame. These reframed images through doors and windows provide a glimpse into how these characters embody their encompassing environments that somehow define their existence, or discuss their early understanding of gender. They also add depth of field, layering the screen space under the lens of an unmoving camera, allowing the audience to enter the characters' intimate spaces without intruding.

Filmed exclusively with static shots, Holy Electricity presents its characters as if they were part of a tableau vivant. Some city-dwellers appear to pose for photographs as they gaze directly into the camera, also positioned at the center of the image. Both main actors, first-time performers, bring their personalities and life experiences to their roles, with Nodo even inviting his transgender friends to join in a late-night discussion. In the tradition of docufiction, many characters reveal their true selves, improvising dialogue, while the residents depicted in the film are real people in their actual homes: an older man with bones so flexible he can casually rest his leg over his head or fit his entire body into a box, two elderly women proudly displaying their collection of fluffy bears while their bookshelves brim with dolls. These bon vivants seize every opportunity to sing, whether that be in the rain, at a traffic light, wrapped in a red plastic sheet, while scavenging for flea market finds to improvise new creations, or simply enjoying a round of drumbeats. Their subdued joviality is accentuated by subtle flashes of red — the vibrant hue of their car, Nodo’s shirt, or the door of a potential customer for their neon crucifix.

Holy Electricity is Kotetishvili’s affectionate tribute to his city, celebrating its unique quirks and charms, offering a gentle reflection on the obsession with religion, and providing a nonjudgmental perspective on the encounters between people of different gender identities, ethnicities, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Bewildering and deeply humane, the film’s most absurd moments are also its most spellbinding. While the film begins with death, it ends with life — in the final scene before the credits roll, accompanied by Vakhtang Kantaria’s celestial singing and minimalistic guitar tunes in Migatoves, a group of young people appear to be dancing, though they might just as easily be pushing and shoving one another, throwing casual punches, and playfully roughhousing. It’s a world where embraces and physical confrontations blur together, where camaraderie coexists with violent debt collection, and where even electricity can be plausibly blessed by priests.