A Long Break belongs to the reunion subgenre of films, but the circumstances of this Georgian reunion possibly put it in another subgenre. Tsitsi (Shako Mirianashvili) tells an old classmate, Guga (Giorgi Sharvashidze) that a few of their common friends want to reunite, break into their old school, and have a drink or several. The film usual visual cues to differentiate them, specifically having separate class and lifestyles, so it looks like the bougier Guga may not go. But he does, which is probably not the best decision on his part. Tsitsi promises that another friend (Sandro Kalandadze) is coming later. Tsitsi, getting drunker as the night goes on, implies Guga of being the reason that that friend is in a wheelchair, among other things.
The main tension in A Long Break appears and disappears within the dialogue, letting the other men accuse each other of bullying. Sometimes the accusations are off the table, as the friends converse using lighter topics, as if they actually care about each other, which they do. This film is one of the rare few that makes the bullying topic more complex, since sometimes the people who participate in that kind of behaviour are also one’s friends who do good things as well as the bad. There’s another thing that helps make these concepts stick to the viewers, and that’s the chemistry that the actors have. The film then captures that alchemy through beautiful Baroque lighting, examining these characters’ faces and masculine identity crises.
- Release Date: 9/15/2022
