L'été de mes 27 baisers

27 Missing Kisses shows that Europeans are still capable of producing strong little pictures about life in general as lived by ordinary people . Much of the charm of the film lies in the recognition of man's ability of making a complete fool of himself. The natural beauty of the leading character, Sibylla, her disarming honesty in her doomed love for an older man makes one wonder at the forced and unnaturally contrived lives we all lead. Never preachy or heavy-handed, sentimental nor crude, but always utterly believable, its straightforwardness is deceiving. The village in which most of the action takes place is filled with its fair share of funnily sketched characters. Entertaining as they are, they only serve as distractions from what lies beneath.

The clever and convincing script, the sober but beautiful photography and the natural performances combined with the assured direction make this German/Georgian co-production a little gem of which any big name director would have been proud. I'm happy to say they still make them this way.

A film that captures the sexual awakening of adolescence, with a 14-year-old girl (Nutsa Kukhianidze) developing a crush for the 41-year-old father of her boyfriend. This is put alongside what seems to be the sexual awakening of a town in a former Soviet social republic, coincident with the screening of the film Emmanuelle. Maybe there's a political message in here along the lines of Westernization and freedom, but mostly I saw it as a coming of age tale, one with an undercurrent of pride in Georgian culture. We see people laughing and unperturbed even though busses and shepherds are shelled by an out of control military leader on a nearby hillside, and a father is unfazed when his teenage son grabs a gun, saying simply "think before you shoot." There is something stoic at the bottom of all the zaniness. The film has moments that are surreal and others which are comedic, and it's never boring.

Kukhianidze is a gorgeous young woman but as the character is 14 and the actor was 17, I thought the number of scenes where she appeared topless was a little gratuitous. Maybe they're in there to show this transitional period where a girl who is still immature is now in a beautiful young body, something emphasized by her mother still sponging her down in a bathing scene. The scenes where she peeks around a corner to spy on others engaged in illicit activities also add to this, and her eyes convey quite a bit of a fearless, playful, and yet awkward girl. It's a compelling performance and she made the movie for me.

In an interesting parallel, Director Nana Jorjadze is pretty fearless herself, with all of the film's bawdiness and the ethereal images she puts up on the screen. At times I felt the story line was a little too silly, such as the penis getting stuck in the ball bearings, and I wish there had been a slight tonal shift to emotions. One of the young women (Amaliya Mordvinova) has a habit of kicking up her long legs provocatively, and that seems to match Jorjadze's unabashed, carefree spirit though. She also gives us a lovely touch at the end through the narrator, communicating that these times in our lives, precious though they be in our memories, slip away from us.

This is a beautiful movie in every way. It's too bad that Hollywood can't produce something like this once in awhile. While Sibylla is misunderstood by everyone around her, the audience understands only too well that sometimes we can't explain our feelings. Sometimes we can't just automatically conform. In fact, sometimes the most interesting people are people like Sibylla who is beautiful self from beginning to end. She follows her heart no matter how illogical or imprudent those feelings might be... not matter the cost. Nutsa Kukhianidze is spectacular. Great to look at. Fun to spend two hours with. A very convincing young rebel.

I realize that the film maker wishes us to find her 14 year old Georgian Lolita a delightful free spirit but after 30 min all I could see was a smug bore.

Set in Georgia -- the one in Eurasia, not the one around Atlanta -- or perhaps seacoast Bohemia, this movie, directed by Nana Dzhordzhadze, is a Shakespearean comedy that makes liberal use of images from his tragedies. In a theatrics-mad town, the screening of the French movie Emanuelle has everyone discussing this new vision of art, and has fourteen-year-old Nutsa Kukhianidze deciding she is going to seduce and wed the forty-one-year-old father of her age-appropriate boyfriend.

It's shot in sections of Tbiliisi and Athens -- the one in Greece, not Georgia -- and lit by cinematographer Phedon Papamichael that give it the look of a Kenneth Branagh Shakespeare movie from the 1990. Somehow it manages to mock the psychology of teen-aged girls and show their sorrows at the same time, and be beautiful to look at.