Street Days

In the streets of Tbilisi, Checkie, 40-years-old, wanders in a constant search for money. Without means, he’s ready for anything to get the heroine he needs. Alone and owing money to everyone, his life is a permanent struggle. What’s more he has to contribute financially to the upbringing of his seven-year-old child, the only human being who still regards him with loving eyes.
In Tbilisi, however, other people get on better and, as everywhere else, middle-class teenagers are bored and look for ways of escape. When some corrupt policemen decide to use Checkie to trap one of these teenagers and blackmail his parents, Checkie is forced to rethink his priorities.
Even though Levan Koguashvili doesn’t lack humour in the way he tackles the subject, the picture he draws of post-Soviet society in Georgia is harsh, in particular for those who lived through the change. His subtle mise-en-scène allows us to understand the space in which the characters move, the proximity of their respective areas of action, their intrusive closeness, which doesn’t offer much of a second chance. Street Days manages to bring to light what keeps people going in spite of unbearable everyday conditions, to make us feel or guess, with an ironic touch, the social organisation of a city left to itself.