Pastorale (New Restoration)

Shelved without explanation by censors upon its release in 1979, Otar Iosseliani’s third feature was the last film he made in his native Georgia before his self-elected exile to France. A work of capacious freedom, Pastorale inaugurated a decisive shift in Iosseliani’s work towards ensemble narratives, in which an interconnected web of characters act as protagonist. The film follows a group of classical musicians from Tbilisi who alight to the countryside in search of peace and quiet. Taking up residence with the family of a local truck driver, the quartet are soon interrupted in their bucolic practice by the myriad goings-on of the village and the sweet temptations of idleness. A droll urban-rural clash of cultures, Pastorale ultimately swells into an affecting symphony from its polyphony of faces and places. (Otar Iosseliani, Georgia, 1975, 95 min.) In Georgian with English subtitles