‘Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry’ Review: A New Life Beckons For a Late Bloomer in a Wry Georgian Charmer
Jessica Kiang Of all the classic summer berries — straw, blue, goose, rasp — blackberries ripen latest. That makes them an appropriate fruit for sturdy 48-year-old loner Etero (Eka Chavleishvili) to be reaching for at the beginning of Elene Naveriani’s slyly delightful “Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry.” But then, further distracted by the other title star, a handsome blackbird, she takes a tumble in to a ravine. It could have killed her. Indeed, there’s a moment where she envisions that it has. She watches as idly curious passersby gather around her body; anyone who has ever imagined their own funeral would be disappointed by this paltry turnout. One subtle trick of Naveriani’s second feature, making good on the promise of her Locarno-awarded debut “Wet Sand,” is to convey that this near-death experience marks a rupture in Etero’s normal routine, while also establishing the shape of that routine. Perhaps it’s the first time Etero herself has really noticed how small are the patterns of her life, or perhaps, in her vaguely dislocated state, it’s the first time she’s felt unfulfilled by them.