A constant presence at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, as I’ve noted in previous years, are Georgian films – rarely achieving the poetic heights of Alexandre Koberidze’s cinema, but always of substance and worth watching; often a flicker of… something amidst many less inspired titles in the competition. Much potential is also found in director George Sikharulidze’s debut, Panopticon / Panoptikoni, a co-production with France, Italy, and Romania (Tangaj Productions), making it, by proxy, the only Romanian presence in this year’s competition for the Crystal Globe.

The story places us in a somewhat familiar context (for Georgia’s recent past is slightly different from ours), that of a post-transition Eastern European world, still caught between the old and the new, with parents gone abroad for work, entrenched patriarchy, volatile masculinities, and religion as a sticky paste that won’t come out of the fabric of things. But despite the traditional tensions latently ravaging the society, modernization is present among the younger generations – high school student Sandro (a debut by Data Chachua), unlike his partying, libertine classmates, seems more of an exception.  With his mother in the United States and raised by an extremely religious father – given the 20 or so icons hanging above the couch where he sleeps – Sandro doesn’t seem to find his place in society.

Although Chachua’s physique resembles an Antoine Doinel played by a rougher and more introverted Louis Garrel, Sandro is by no means that antisocial rascal whose mischiefs eventually become endearing. The discovery of sexuality comes with rather deviant impulses: although shy, he constantly feels the urge to touch women in public spaces. After finding a teammate’s USB drive in the locker room after football practice, containing a porn video and a home video of his teammate’s mother, Sandro develops an obsession with the woman and visits her at the hair salon where she works, finding the idea exciting. Coincidentally, his teammate Lasha (Vakho Kedeladze) wants to be friends with him, plunging Sandro into the toxicity of a small street gang but also bringing him closer to Natalia (Ia Sukhitashvili), his friend’s mother.

Sikharulidze maintains a good balance between suspicious antipathy and understanding for his protagonist, gradually revealing the circumstances behind the complicated psyche of the 17-year-old. Even when the hood stuff and hooliganism turn into racist and right-wing bullying, you might still pity Sandro. After all, he is deprived of normal adolescent experiences and, basically, love, as his father is largely absent, more focused on becoming a monk and his relationship with the church and God than with his family. The excessive piety he was raised with is the cause of both a harmful shame about his sexuality, his incel tendencies, and thus contradictory demands from his girlfriend, Tina (Salome Gelenidze), asking her not to have sex before marriage and insisting on virginal chastity. In this context, Natalia, who responds to him with (ambiguously romantic) affection, comes across as a surrogate mother to Sandro but also as a complete package of idealised love.

Accusing Tina of perversity – a false perversity, as the girl is just sweet and normal for a 12th-grade teenager – reflects Sandro’s internalised, misunderstood, and conflicting religiosity, condemning his father for much of the film for his devotion to God. Fueled by misunderstood issues and blind, unexpressed anger towards those around him, Sandro is precisely the best material to absorb nationalist narratives, gradually becoming one of the most extreme and violent in Lasha’s group. Until this rage is unleashed, Sikharulidze keeps the viewer on a morally convoluted path, skilfully negotiating the limits of sympathy one can feel for Sandro’s decline.

Maybe it’s just the appearance of a connection to the New Wave, but perhaps the main issue with Panopticon is this inflated sense of old: especially in interior scenes, it sometimes feels like an early 2000s production, rather than somewhere closer to 2020 or 2024.

The film’s cinematography is signed by none other than Oleg Mutu and indeed, there is something very Romanian New Wave-like about Sikharulidze’s debut. I don’t say this disapprovingly but rather as a praise, as the muted colour scheme, in browns and blues, seems the perfect choice to convey the stifling reality of this environment, constantly caught between archaic and transitional. Maybe it’s just the appearance of a connection to the New Wave, but perhaps the main issue with Panopticon is this inflated sense of old: especially in interior scenes, it sometimes feels like an early 2000s production, rather than somewhere closer to 2020 or 2024, where the anti-Arab immigrant protests depicted in the film place us.

Even if some characters are a bit over-elaborated – the father is too much of what you’d expect from a religious man and an absent parent – ​​Sikharulidze’s debut is an excellent study of adrift and easily exploited young Eastern European masculinities. Along with shaved haircuts and tracksuits, with typical toxicities stemming from frustrations and shortcomings that quickly escalate into intolerance and right-wing extremism, Panopticon works with an uncomfortable familiarity for our part of Europe, closely observing its characters but never defending or excusing them.

Dora Leu

Graduated with a BA in film directing and a MA in film studies from UNATC; she's also studied history of art. Also collaborates with the Acoperisul de Sticla film magazine and is a former coordinator of FILM MENU. She's dedicated herself to '60-'70s Japanese cinema and Irish post-punk music bands. Still keeps a picture of Leslie Cheung in her wallet.