Winter Song

Synopsis

“Satire and surrealism meet in Otar Iosseliani’s delightful “Winter Song”. (…) Moments after raping and pillaging an entire war-torn town, soldiers from some unnamed battalion gather in silence around a piano, surrounded by empty wreckage, as one of the men plays a solemn tune. Then they’re baptized. In another time and place, protestors are carted away by police forces, but as the van incarcerating them drives off, the camera lingers on a group of tai chi practitioners standing nearby. In the city, a homeless man gets flattened to pancake proportions by a bulldozer, only to be salved by other pedestrians who slip him under a doorstep. These are just a few of the sublimely ridiculous moment in Georgian-French director Otar Iosseliani’s “Winter Song”, an alternately tragic and funny odyssey from a master of striking that balance. But while in tune with his many other films, “Winter Song“ remains fully enjoyable on its own terms.” (Eric Kohn, IndieWire)

Around The World in 14 Films 2016, presented by Sven Taddicken – in attendance of director Otar Iosseliani