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And Then We Danced is a Georgian-Swedish queer movie directed by Levan Akin that premiered at Cannes this year and won hugh praise. It has been to some other festivals since and will be the Swedish contender for the Foreign Language Oscar. I watched it yesterday at my local queer film festival.

What a movie! I’d seen the trailer and read some reviews and interviews with the cast so I was already hyped. And I didn’t get disappointed.

What is it about? Merad is a young dancer training with the Georgian National Ensemble. It’s not Ballet they perform but traditional Georgian dance, a very formal, rigid, controlled form of dancing, following strict rules. There’s not much room for free expression in it, it’s more about executing the figures as exactly as possible. Still, it has a powerful aura. Men are told to dance ‘masculine’, strong, while women are to dance as innocent as possible (something that makes the dancers laugh). As the teacher says ‘There’s no sexuality in Georgian dance.’

Merab has been teamed with his female partner Mari since he was 10. He can’t live on dance, this is not a happy dance movie just about rivalry in a company, he has to work as a waiter in the evening, bringing home left-overs to his family so they can get by. His mother had been a  dancer too but now drinks and works at a shop. His father had also been a famous dancer but has left the family and now works on a market, selling scrap metal and car parts. Even Merab’s grandmother who shares the family flat had been a dancer. Later we learn that they all danced at the Scala, the Met, the Royal Albert Hall when on tour with the Ensemble. Yet nothing of that fleeting fame staid or got them anywhere.

Merab also has an older brother who also dances but doesn’t take it that serious. He’s a bit of the black sheep of the family, going out partying all night. The family dynamic seems somewhat difficult but also affectionate.

Just when a vacancy comes up at the first ensemble (because one principal dancer had been kicked out because he was discovered having had sex with another man), the one that tours Europe and could mean at least making some money, Irakli, a new dancer, shows up. He’s talented but also somewhat nonconformist, wearing an earring for example. Merab quickly determines that he will be his biggest rival to get into the main company.

They have one very intense dance scene together in which they both try to impress the other but also are suddenly in perfect harmony.

Merab is fascinated by Irakli. And he’s smart. So he suggests they train together, to learn from the best, to push each other. One night, they all hang out together with their friends and in the morning Merab and Irakli have breakfast at Irakli’s and Merab is really reluctant to leave.

There are glances, touches, but it can all still be summed up as just being bros.

The next weekend they all spend at the summer house of Mari, Merab’s dance partner. There are girls and boys and they party and get drunk. Mari makes a shy pass at Merab but instead he wanders off into the woods where he finds Irakli, alone.

God, the tension! They end up giving each other a handjob (you don’t see much but it’s pretty clear and must be quite explicit by Georgian standards). It’s not so much about the sex act, anyway, it’s about the desperation with which both finally succumb to the ever building desire between them.

The next day, Merab is somewhat unsure how to go about things but then Irakli dances with him again and all seems fine. In the evening, Merab dances for Irakli, and it’s one of the most erotic moments I’ve seen in a while. Merab teases and taunts and is quite beguiling in this movements, it’s beautiful to watch.

Later that night, they have sex again, and this time the visuals provided are a little more explicit. When they return to the house afterwards, Mari realizes that something is going on.

Merab is so in love the next days, radiant with love, relaxed, happy. He’s to meet Irakli for training, and on the bus there even smiles at a beautiful boy.

But then Irakli doesn’t show up and doesn’t answer his phone.

Merab tries to find him and learns that he’s left Tiflis. No one knows if he’ll come back. Then Merab loses his job because of his brother. Then his brother is also kicked off the Ensemble. Merab doesn’t even have any money on his phone left. He’s utterly lost.

But then he meets the boy from the bus again by chance and they go clubbing and Merab discovers that there is a gay scene in Tiflis - but it exists on the fringes of society, in dark clubs, and many lgbtq folks have to prostitute themselves to get by. Yet he learns that he’s not alone and is welcomed into this scene with open arms.

But all this excitement, the emotional rollercoaster, his inner turmoil and his very real life problems, take their toll on him. He injures himself during training. And a fellow dancer has seen him at the gay club and outs him in front of his friends, calling him a fag. Merab’s devastated, still tries to dance but even that seems taken from him due to his injury. Has he lost everything?

Then Merab learns that his brother has knocked up a girl and has to marry her now. The affair is traditional and not very happy but at the party afterwards Merab meets Irakli again. Who tells him that he also will get married, because of his family, because he’s not that into dance as Merab is, because he just wants a good, stable life.

In a last gesture, Merab hands him his earring back that he’d found after training and kept as a token of their love ever since.

When I saw Merab sit on a bed afterwards, slumping down, crying, I thought, ‘well, yeah, another queer movie with unhappy ending’… what had I expected within this setting? But then… oh, folks!

First, Mari tells Merab that she understands him and accepts him. Then Merab comes out to his brother, who got into a fight at his own wedding to defend Merab’s honor as someone calls him a fag again. When Merab doesn’t deny it his brother hugs him tightly but also tells him that he has to get out of Georgia, that he doesn’t have a future there.

Then it’s the day of the audition for the first company. Irakli doesn’t show. But Mari supports Merab, who’s still injured. He can’t perform at his best and so the director of the first company wants to end his audition early - but Merab refuses to leave. The musicians play on and he dances, even as his ankle starts bleeding. He’s graceful, powerful, mesmerizing - but he doesn’t confirm to the stirct rules of Georgian dance anymore, his movements become softer, beguiling, erotic, lascivious, yet stay strong, precise. He creates something new there, something unique, his own dance. His trainer realizes that and lets him finish even after the director has left.

Irakli walks out, head held high, proud, in pain but also undefeated. He won’t get into the first company. But he found his own way, his own language, his own dance, he didn’t hide who he is - and you know that he’ll at least be true to himself, whereever and at what cost. This is such a powerful, hopeful, strong ending without being saccarine or soppy.

The movie looks very lush, set in Tiflis’ old town. But it’s not a touristy set design, trying to lure you to spend your bext holiday there. We see the peeling paint, the gloominess, we also see ugly concrete tenements. It feels very real.

And the music and choreographies! I didn’t know much about this kind of dance but it is marvelous, amazing, beautiful.

The actors are magnificent. Esp Levan Gelbakhiani as Merab, who acts so nuanced, subtle, but is also a great dancer. You can read every emotion on his face. What a discovery!

There re some cmbyn moments, for example when Merab sucks the cross he wears on a chain around his neck into his mouth; the way he gazes at himself in a mirror; him running around just in shorts in the old summer house. He’s also a boy, like Elio, with a somewhat unusual obsession (in his case dance, not the piano). But where cmbyn created an idyll removed from reality, without any real life problems, ATWD incorporates those into the story: many people are poor, work numerous jobs and still don’t get anywhere, there’s homophobia all around, church and traditions threaten to suffocate society and esp the young generation. Still, the movie manages to end so hopeful, making such a strong statement, even hinting at the possibility of gwrowing acceptance for queer people in Georgian society. This movie is more than ‘just’ a beautiful love affair as it tries to bring different traditions together and asks for acceptance.

same energy

And Then We Danced (Levan Akin, 2019)

edward: say it…say it out loud