The Caucasus, 1864. Goreshist Russia wants to expel Chechens from a village in order to resettle Cossacks there, using it as a springboard for further imperialism and colonialism towards the south. A Chechen girl, Eliso, is in love with a Georgian lad, Vajia. Her father Astamur, the village elder, hears from commander Seidulla that they are to be evicted from their village. The Chechens all sign a petition that ostensibly says they want to stay, but Seidulla then reveals that, since they cannot read Cyrillic, the petition actually stated that they "voluntarily" signed on to leave the village. Vajia goes to a Russian military outpost, battles the soldiers and forces the general to issue a decree allowing the Chechens to stay. He brings the document to Eliso, but it is too late, the Chechens are already moving. Astamur says he only regrets that they didn't burn the village behind them, so Eliso runs back, sets the village on fire, and returns back to the caravan. Vajia wants to marry Eliso, but since he is a Christian, and the Chechens now blame every Christian, Astamur rejects his proposal, and Eliso travels with the Chechens into the Ottoman Empire.
Ranked in a local poll as one of the 12 best Georgian films of all time, "Eliso" is an ethnographic study of the peoples in the Caucasus as well as a historical lesson about the deportation of the Chechens during the 1864 Circassian genocide, which is a subject touched upon only indirectly. Their deportation in the end also marks the end of the Romeo & Juliet-type couple, the Christian lad Vajia and Chechen Muslim woman Eliso, who departs with her nation. Using wide shots of the mountainous region, whose desolate nature becomes an allegory of human cruelty and rough nature, the director Nikoloz Shengelaia crafts an economic, but also intimate and ambitious portrait of rural people who are not sophisticated, but still have more honor, humanity and integrity than the Russian military that is encroaching them. Two most memorable sequences: in the first, Vajia enters the Russian military outpost and eventually starts a fencing duel with three Russian soldiers, having only one sword and a shield in his hands. He jumps on a table, one soldier grabs his leg and pushes him to fall down, but Vajia simply continues fencing with them, lying on the ground (!), and then going under the table for cover. In the second, the Cossacks are heading towards the village on horses, but a hundred Chechens villagers simply sit on the ground, thereby blocking their entrance, since the horses stop and refuse to trample on humans. The maniacally fast editing of the Chechen dance sequence is also unusually hyperactive and dynamic for the silent movie era, creating its very own rhythm. The ethnic cleansing in the finale advances into a symbol for human suffering due to intolerance and selfish plans of remote people in power, advocating for universal human rights and sanctity of lives which should never be interrupted.
Grade:+++
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