Beginning

Beginning is a story about obedience and sacrifice. Yana and her husband, David, and their son, Giorgi, live in a small town in Georgia, at the foot of the Caucasus, near Azerbaijan. They are part of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Yana teaches the children and David takes the pulpit at the Kingdom Halls. Jehovah’s faith feels as inexorable as Yana feels about her marriage. The seclusion of the sect and the confinement of the marriage are magnified through the almost square aspect ratio of 1:33. There is almost no possible escape. Parallel to the crisis in the religious commune (because of an attack on the Kingdom Halls), their marriage suffers a crisis also. “It’s as if I were waiting for something to start or to end,” says Yana to David at one point. Yana constantly tries to put into words her suffering and emptiness. But the egocentric David does not hear her. “Life passes by as if I am not even here."

When David goes away for a week, a series of disturbing events occur. The unexpected visit of detective Alex from Tiblisi ends up in a point-blank psychological invasion which would make Michel Haneke drool. Alex is the personification of bigotry, misogyny and the institutional authorities. He is the punishment she thinks she deserves.

The measured aesthetics of Dea Kulumbegashvili’s debut feature will be a joy for some, but a source of irritation for others. The fixed camera angles and long takes remind us of the work of Carlos Reygades, who is the executive producer of this film. In the middle of the film we see a scene where Yana lies on the ground for seven minutes straight, with her eyes closed, on a picturesque carpet of leaves, some green and blooming, others dead. The only sound comes from the birds singing. Halfway through the scene the sound fades and we get pulled into Yana’s impenetrable silence even more.