Elene Dariani
(2024)

Elene Dariani 🌹

Elene Dariani is a Georgian stop-motion short film directed by Elene Tavadze, which plays in the ‘Perspectives’ section at this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival. The story follows the secret life of the mysterious Georgian poet Elene Bakradze, who used the pseudonym Elene Dariani while writing fourteen erotic and romantic pieces of literature that were collected and officially authored by her friend Paolo Iashvilli.

This short film depicts the struggle Elene faced as a Georgian woman in love, expressing her passion and desire through poetry, for a love that she had to internalize because of the cultural views of those around her who felt women shouldn’t have these kinds of public displays of affection, even if they are just words.

There’s a yearning in this that works not only as the surface-level story of a love that must remain in the shadows but as a yearning to get credit for the work the poets around her seem to understand, respect, and admire but that continues to be credited to someone who isn’t you. She heard the murmurs and whispers of society claiming her work to be “poetry for the sexually ill,” making it even harder for her to take ownership and forcing her to contemplate the idea of even continuing to write.

Being shunned before you’ve even shown your face is a battle she faces alone, and even when she’s in the arms of the one she’s loved, the burden of those “echoes of emotions that awake within her.” becomes muted by the onslaught of the societal and cultural rejection of a woman who, if she were a man, would be deemed a romantic but instead is portrayed as a sultry nuisance.

Stop motion was the perfect animation style for this story because it’s able to create this dream-like scenario that weaves through her reality, her truth, and her subconscious imagination, which depicts the drowning feeling of not being accepted.

I found myself sympathizing with her and the struggling isolation she faced, especially as she tried to be understanding, but trying to provide rational to the thoughts of the irrational is enough to drive anyone insane.

Elene Dariani is a perspective piece that nails the suffering heart of a poet while capturing an uncanny valley feeling of living between a reality that won’t accept you and an imagination that needs freeing. 

Enjoy!

7.9/10 🍿 🎥

Runtime: 13mins
Where: Annecy International Animation Film Festival 2024

Elene Dariani Review (2024) The Richmond Reviewer

#Animation #Animated #Review #MovieReview #Movie #Cinema #ShortFilm #StopMotion #Georgia #Poetry #Poet #Poem #Annecy #AnnecyFestival  #Annecy2024