MY HAPPY FAMILY

Manana’s every movement is deliberate. The mother of two grown-up children has made up her mind: she wants to finally feel what it means to be on her own for once, out of the all too turbulent family home, this cosy but ever-cramped nest, which is slated to soon serve as the central hub for four whole generations of her family. Calmly yet constantly in motion the camera follows Manana, this unlikely “golden girl”, as she liberates herself step by step from all of the gentle coercion that patriarchal society has erected around her. The brother who “takes care” of everything without being asked, the mother who supposedly never did anything but make sacrifices, her husband Soso, who’s not really all that bad after all –it seems inconceivable to everyone that she could really just up and go. And yet that’s exactly what she does, quietly, it’s true, but no less resolutely. Manana repeats over and over plainly “I’m not coming back”, but nobody really seems to hear; everyone wants to speak for her instead of with her. The most recent film by German-Georgian directorial duo Nana & Simon tells an almost quotidian tale, one which still somehow manages to be unprecedented. In wonderfully modern and trenchant fashion, the two filmmakers deconstruct the familial ideal in the most beautiful colours and streaming light. Thanks in no small part to a strong performance by big-screen discovery Ia Shugliashvili, a polyphonic portrait of an independent woman emerges.