The song thrush
The song thrush , and Once Upon a Song Thrush (Original title: Iko shashvi mgalobeli, იყო შაშვი მგალობელი) ( Жил певчий дрозд , Shield pewtschi drosd), translated in the opening credits of Once Upon a loose bird , is a Soviet feature film in Georgia directed by Otar Iosseliani in 1970 .
action
It is 36 hours from the life of the young musician Gija, who beats the drum in the Tbilisi orchestra. At the beginning of the film, as always, he only comes to the theater for a performance at the moment when his effort is required and which he succeeds. The reason for the delay is a girl he asks to wait for him in the cloakroom until the end of the performance. After the performance, he quickly makes an appointment with a dancer, as he has already forgotten the first girl. In front of the theater he is picked up by a doctor friend in the ambulance in order to have a little party with other friends, so he lets both appointments go.
The next day a couple from Valdai came to visit, and Giya promised to show them his city. First of all, his mother has to take care of both of them, because he is always restless on the road. He is excluded from the rehearsal of the orchestra by the conductor, because he is first supposed to talk to the director of the theater about his lack of punctuality. Since the director's office is not vacant, he flirts with the lady in the hall. But then he gets an appointment for 3:00 p.m. and goes back to visit his friends in a watchmaker's workshop. On all his journeys through the city, he takes the opportunity to engage beautiful girls, known and unknown, in conversation. When he gets back to the director, he is again not present.
On his further journey through Tbilisi, Giya is invited by friends to a larger ceremony and is only released when he agrees to come. That is why he can get his performance in the orchestra just in time and will then leave the performance immediately, since there is no longer any need for the timpani in this piece. Now he has to go to an aunt's birthday party to play the piano, which he promised his mother. Then he barely manages to get back to the late stage performance of the orchestra, then he finally goes to the party of his friends in a restaurant. But even here he lets himself be distracted again and again, goes to strangers at the tables, which his friends resent him very much. After visiting a friend and watching a football game on TV with their relatives, he finally comes home to sleep.
The next day he wants to go to his next appointment after getting up. On the street, as always, he turns to look at a beautiful girl, does not pay attention to the traffic and is run over by a car. Giya is transported away by ambulance, but the final look into the running clockwork of a pocket watch in his friends' workshop suggests that he will not survive the accident.
Production and publication
The black and white film premiered on July 11, 1972 under the title Жил певчий дрозд in Moscow . The Georgian version was performed in Tbilisi as early as 1970. Like all Georgian films , The Song Thrush was shot in Georgian and then dubbed in Russian for the other Soviet republics .
In the GDR , the film was shown as part of the IV Information Show of New Soviet Films in Berlin at the beginning of May 1972. The cinema release for cinematic art theaters took place on December 8, 1973 in the Berlin OTL (Oranienburger Tor Lichtspiele) cinema as part of the program of the Studio Cinema Camera . The film was shown in normal cinemas from October 10, 1975. It was broadcast on the first program on GDR television on July 14, 1976.
In the Federal Republic , the film ran for the first time in October 1974 within the framework of the XXII. Mannheim Film Week and on March 28, 1975 on ZDF .
criticism
In New Germany , Rolf Richter wrote :
“'Die Singdrossel' proves that everyday observations and philosophical demands do not have to contradict each other if, thanks to the artistic consistency of the idea, the events of the film become a test for the character and we can understand the characters' thoughts and feelings with the necessary clarity . This film from the Tbilisi studio is one of the most beautiful I've seen recently, simple, personable and warm-hearted. "
For the lexicon of international film , this film is a melancholy comedy from Georgia.
Web links
- The song thrush in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The song thrush at kino-teatr.ru
Individual evidence
- ↑ Neue Zeit of May 7, 1972, p. 4
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung of December 7, 1973, p. 5
- ↑ Neue Zeit of July 10, 1976, p. 10
- ↑ Neues Deutschland, November 5, 1975, p. 4
- ↑ The song thrush. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 15, 2017 .