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Oct 14, 2024 By Kaveh Jalinous Web Exclusive

Dea Kulumbegashvili’s sophomore feature, April, is a slowly-unfurling, harrowing tale about a woman’s struggle in a society that undervalues and threatens her at all times.

Set in rural Georgia, April follows Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili), a doctor who works in her village’s hospital as an OB-GYN. The film opens with her delivering a baby via natural birth, only for the baby to be stillborn. Enraged, the baby’s father opens an investigation into the death of his newborn child, accusing Nina of negligence (even though a natural birth was guaranteed to be dangerous and potentially fatal) and putting her career in jeopardy. The investigation upends her life completely—not only her sense of solitude but her comings and goings outside of work, where she secretly delivers black market abortion services to women who need them across the rural province.

At 135 minutes, April is incredibly slow-burning, but not in the way most would expect. Kulumbegashvili’s framing and blocking style is rooted in isolation. Characters are often alone in large spaces—like the vast expanse of nature at dawn or the overwhelmingly sterile, whitewashed hospital rooms and offices. The director rarely cuts between characters or between temporal moments. In many scenes, one can hear (or see) a ticking clock in the background, indicating just how much time the director dedicates to capturing each character’s tone, expression, and environment. The result is unsettling and effective. It’s hard not to spend each minute of April worrying about the consequences that threaten each of Nina’s actions because Kulumbegashvili’s stylistic choices constantly convince you that something is always on the verge of happening. And even when the film’s framing focuses on seemingly unrelated elements–like the rainy mud or the seemingly endless expanse of flower fields–there is a broader agenda at play. As such, while each of Kulumbegashvili’s sequences may take a while to reach its thematic or narrative conclusion, the journey there is so anxiety-inducing in its stillness and homogeneity that you won’t even realize you’re on the edge of your seat until you’re there.

Importantly, Kulumbegashvili’s lens throughout April does not shy away from confronting the viewer with strong, affecting, and harrowing imagery. The film opens with a graphic depiction of the stillborn child’s birth, a harbinger of the types of imagery spread throughout the film. The relentlessness of Kulumbegashvili’s approach makes the film extremely difficult to watch but inherently necessary at the same time. Watching Nina go through her daily life—and the various ways in which she must dodge neighbors’ suspicions, rumors, and even threats to perform her services, help women in need, and even just survive—provides powerful, timely commentary on the misguided status of society. There’s so much lingering beneath the surface of the film, and Kulumbegashvili’s willingness to take creative, stylistic, and narrative risks to unfurl these ideas makes April unforgettable, during its 135 minutes and far beyond. (http://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2024/films/april/)

Author rating: 6.5/10