Movies can truly be anything, and the beauty of Alexandre Koberidze’s “What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?” is how it reminds us of that — time and again — during almost every one of its meandering 150 minutes.
Nevertheless, a crucial scene towards the beginning stands out for the way it epitomizes that magic. A soccer player named Giorgi (Giorgi Ambroladze) and a knowledgeable young pharmacist named Lisa (Ani Karseladze) have just enjoyed an extremely Lanthimos-esque meet-cute along the banks of the Rioni River in the ancient Georgian city of Kutaisi; we’ve only seen them interact from the knees down or through nighttime long shots lensed from so far away that these characters have been reduced to specks of light in the darkness, but the film’s affectless narrator (voiced by Koberidze himself) assures us of their shared affections. Alas, they are both about to be cursed as well,...
Nevertheless, a crucial scene towards the beginning stands out for the way it epitomizes that magic. A soccer player named Giorgi (Giorgi Ambroladze) and a knowledgeable young pharmacist named Lisa (Ani Karseladze) have just enjoyed an extremely Lanthimos-esque meet-cute along the banks of the Rioni River in the ancient Georgian city of Kutaisi; we’ve only seen them interact from the knees down or through nighttime long shots lensed from so far away that these characters have been reduced to specks of light in the darkness, but the film’s affectless narrator (voiced by Koberidze himself) assures us of their shared affections. Alas, they are both about to be cursed as well,...
- 9/29/2021
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
After the success of his first feature Let the Summer Never Come, Georgian filmmaker Alexandre Koberidze found his second feature What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? placed prominently within the main competition of the Berlinale’s recent online edition, where it was met with considerable acclaim and the receipt of the Fipresci prize. Koberidze’s two features share some similarities, but this second one—made as the filmmaker’s graduation project for the German Film and Television Academy Berlin (Dffb) programme that filmmakers such as Christian Petzold and Angela Schanelec studied on—seems like a scaling up. Instead of himself filming (as he did with a Sony Ericsson W595 for his first film) Koberidze works here with a crew and a cinematographer. He continues some ideas from his first feature and introduces many others that are new. Taken together, these two films display an emerging filmmaker...
- 3/31/2021
- MUBI
What did the drain pipe, the security camera, and the sapling say to the girl when she crossed the road? This is the set up, not of some shitty joke, but of a key scene of dramatic conflict in Aleksandre Koberidze’s What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?. At the beginning of the film, Lisa (Oliko Barbakadze) and Giorgi (Giorgi Ambroladze) have an odd meet cute in the streets of the Georgian city of Kutaisi. They fall in love at first sight, arrange to meet at a cafe the next day, and forget to ask each others’ names. As Lisa heads home, the pipe, camera, and sapling decide to warn her of encroaching danger. As recounted to us by a narrator (voiced by director Aleksandre Koberidze), they tell Lisa that an evil eye observed her meeting with Giorgi and has cursed them. The next day, she...
- 3/8/2021
- by Orla Smith
- The Film Stage
A heartening sign of the kind of movie—idiosyncratic, surprising, youthful, romantic—that this year's Berlinale has chosen to spotlight in the main competition, Alexandre Koberidze’s second film, What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? is a true delight. A substantial yet effortless work, and only the second film by Koberdize, following his audacious four-hour debut, Let the Summer Never Come Again, it confirms the Georgian director as a major talent.Taking place in the sun-drenched city of Kutaisi along the roaring Rioni River, it tells a fable of a meet-cute between a boy and girl, Giorgi (Giorgi Ambroladze) and Lisa (Ani Karseladze), who immediately feel the pull of love, but for whom the evil eye will disrupt their union. Each wakes up the day of their first date looking completely different, and bereft of their most valuable knowledge. Befuddled and lost in their new identities,...
- 3/4/2021
- MUBI
This shaggy dog fairy tale - with added, non-shaggy dogs - is a ruminative charmer, with the story roaming freely around its central will they/won't they romance plot. Georgian director Aleksandre Koberidze positively luxuriates in his meanderings and musings, for which he also provides sometimes humours, often philosophical narration, so if you like your tales to plot a direct course then this may not be for you, but those who enjoy a cinematic dalliance could do a lot worse than go on this ramble with him.
A chance encounter, just one of the many comings and goings, kicks things off - and the football metaphor is appropriate as the "beautiful game" also has a co-starring role here. The encounter happens between pharmacist Lisa (Oliko Barbakadze ) and footballer Giorgi (Giorgi Ambroladze) and, in a typically quirky move in a movie that is packed with them, we are offered only a.
A chance encounter, just one of the many comings and goings, kicks things off - and the football metaphor is appropriate as the "beautiful game" also has a co-starring role here. The encounter happens between pharmacist Lisa (Oliko Barbakadze ) and footballer Giorgi (Giorgi Ambroladze) and, in a typically quirky move in a movie that is packed with them, we are offered only a.
- 3/4/2021
- by Amber Wilkinson
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
“Attention!” bawls an onscreen title, or rather its subtitle, given that the original is written in Georgia’s lovely curly alphabet. “Dear Audience, please close your eyes at the first signal.” Alexandre Koberidze, writer-director-narrator of the marvellous, mischievous “What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?” probably doesn’t expect anyone to obey as he effects his story’s central switcheroo, like a kid not great at magic asking mom to look away from the handkerchiefs he’s stuffing up his sleeve. But that’s not the point.
Instead, the command, along with other self-conscious flourishes like the direct-address voiceover, the creaky, obviously manual zooms and the sudden, interruptive digressions about global catastrophe and far-off forest fires, reminds us of ourselves in relation to the film, that we are active participants in the creation of this (or any) work of cinema. And given how much this movie loves the movies,...
Instead, the command, along with other self-conscious flourishes like the direct-address voiceover, the creaky, obviously manual zooms and the sudden, interruptive digressions about global catastrophe and far-off forest fires, reminds us of ourselves in relation to the film, that we are active participants in the creation of this (or any) work of cinema. And given how much this movie loves the movies,...
- 3/3/2021
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
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