IAVNANA is a bizarre Georgian film about a girl called Keto stolen from her home and her subsequent reintroduction to her parents later in life with no memory of anything before the kidnapping. The story sounds simple enough, but the film's tone is difficult to decipher, and it consistently straddles a line between Parajanovian tableaux vivants and ABC movie-of-the-week, two styles which in any normal universe don't come anywhere near each other. The girl's existence with her biological parents is idyllic to the point of being other-worldly, and I honestly can't tell whether it is meant to be interpreted literally or ironically. It certainly provides a remarkable contrast to what follows the girl's kidnapping -- the film shifts its focus to her mother, who goes rather insane afterwards. There's a scene here involving witches that I found particularly creepy. I was with the film the entire time, in large part thanks to the gorgeous and rather impressionistic cinematography by Giorgi Beridze (who also shot Nana Djordjadze's ACHEF IN LOVE), but ultimately I found it went by far too quickly. A great deal of time is spent on Keto's early life with her parents, but after she is kidnapped I feel the film is a bit rushed. There are numerous scenes that should carry some substantial dramatic weight but aren't allowed enough breathing room to work to their full effect. Still, it was an intriguing and sometimes fascinating presentation for its stylistic peculiarities, and the precise nature of the daughter's isolation (she is raised in an entirely different culture and speaks a different language) makes the story unique, at least to this American viewer.
