Movie Review: April (Chicago Critics Film Festival)

Dea Kulumbegashvili’s April is one of the toughest filmgoing experiences I have had in a long time. This is a raw, unflinching, and uncompromising look at what women are going through in present-day Georgia.

Nina (Ia Sukhitashvili), an OB-GYN and one of the most respected doctors around, faces accusations after a newborn passes away shortly after birth. With her life under a microscope during the investigation, Nina continues to pursue her medical duties, including continuing to give abortions to women in a small village despite being illegal in her country.

While watching April, I was reminded of a quote by Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles director Chantal Akerman:

“When people are enjoying a film, they say ‘I didn’t see the time go by”… but I think that when time flies and you don’t see time passing by, you are robbed of an hour and a half or two hours of your life. Because all you have in life is time. With my film,s you’re aware of every second passing through your body.”

Kulumbegashvili’s direction has similar vibes to Akerman and this idea because you feel every second of this film’s 134-minute runtime. Kulumbegashvili utilizes long, uncut shots to capture the story and show Nina’s life during the investigation. The scenes vary in their actions. Some of the shots are of Nina driving around at night from her point of view or of a conversation between two doctors in an office. These scenes are quieter but are never aimless or boring. There are other scenes, like the opening childbirth where the baby dies, or the scene where Nina gives a young woman an abortion, that are tough to stomach. Kulumbegashvili does not move the camera an inch during these sequences. She keeps it in one spot while the action takes place. The longer those scenes went on, the lower my body sank into my seat. But I was also astonished by what I was watching. The confidence and skill from a filmmaker with only one other film under her belt to force the audience’s patience and watch these sequences, no matter how quiet or intense, and craft them with a skill and eye that makes them visually interesting and thematically important is an impressive feat. I was blown away by Kulumbegashvili’s direction, as she is now on my list of directors to watch in the future.

Sukhitashvili’s performance is one of the best of the year. We are focused solely on Nina and her actions, and Sukhitashvili is in nearly every frame of the film. Sukhitashvili bares Nina’s soul as she is a respected doctor whose respectability is being thrown out because of how women are treated in Georgia. It’s an astonishing performance that is about empathy, courage, and respect.

April is an important film that shows what it is like to be a woman in present-day Georgia. It’s tough to sit through due to the film’s subject matter and how it is shot, but it is an overall eye-opening experience because it exposes us to the quiet horrors of Georgia while also solidifying Kulumbegashvili as an important voice in modern cinema. I’m not sure I’ll rush to see this one again, but those who haven’t seen the film should see it as soon as possible.

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