Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry: A Gentle Gem of Mid-Life Love and Loneliness

The beauty of nature

In the remote Georgian village, a middle-aged single woman, Etero, played by Eka Chavleishvili, lives a life of loneliness. Her days are filled with the mundane tasks of running the family shop, but her life takes a dramatic turn after a near-death experience. While collecting blackberries for her cakes, she loses her footing and falls into a ravine, only to have a near-death experience.

“I saw my own corpse in a parallel universe of my own stricken imagining.”

This heart-stopping experience, coupled with the onset of menopause, marks a new chapter in Etero’s life. She begins to receive flirtatious deliveries from Murman, played by Temiko Chichinadze, and soon finds herself in a passionate and sensual affair.

Cakes that bring people together

As Etero navigates this new lease of life, she must come to terms with the paradox of her existence. What has ended is not her life, but her 48 years of virginity. Her life has not been easy, having desperately missed her late mother who died of cancer when she was just three months old. But now, life has repaid her with a miracle.

The film, adapted from a 2020 novel by Georgian writer and activist Tamta Melashvili, has a cool and even deadpan self-assurance reminiscent of Aki Kaurismäki or Elia Suleiman. The characters hold each other’s gaze emphatically, but director Elene Naveriani insists on something realer and more naturalistic.

A glimpse into the remote Georgian village

This gentle, sensual gem of a film tells us what most films contrive to ignore: love and sex are not just for the lovely and the sexy and the young. It’s a film that celebrates the beauty of mid-life love and the power of human connection.

The beauty of life

In the end, Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry is a marvellously tender story of loneliness and love, a testament to the human spirit’s capacity to find beauty in the darkest of times.