The Other Bank

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Audience Member The film contains a sad story about the life of young Tedo. Ten months of waiting to see him as he had the jury prize at film festival and I am disappointed as he does not deserve it. The path is strewn with pitfalls and should have lead to a better conclusion. We see the difficulties of living in these remote lands. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Audience Member HKIFF 2010 movie: fair for me. maybe i cannot feel the sense from the movie Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 01/30/23 Full Review Audience Member I saw this at the Cleveland International Film Fest. Before I viewed it I thought the story would have more to do with Tedo pretending to be deaf and dumb while trying to find his father in Abkahzia. That part of the description in the film fest catalog was misleading. An older boy instructs Tedo to do this to cover for the fact that he speaks Georgian and not the languages of the military forces controlling the city he and his Mom had to leave. But he is generally a quiet, shy boy. He only attempts to pass himself off as deaf and dumb a couple times, but though he needs to be careful who he trusts, he opens his mouth to strangers more often than he should. The movie seems to consist of a story that could have been told in half the time. Tedo is bothered by the attention another man is paying to his mother and he begins to get into a life of small crimes. Finally, when he is almost caught he decides to try to find his father. Most of the film is then filled with Tedo on the road meeting different people who help him more or less through the legs of his journey. The general fractured atmosphere of war ravaged Georgia is interesting to observe, but the characters Tedo meets are not all so interesting. It had been eight years before, when he was four years old, the last time he was home and saw his father. Somehow he arrives at his family's old apartment building and finds an Aunt. She is able to tell Tedo what happened to his father. It is not bad news, but it does not lead to a nicely wrapped up ending either since Tedo basically keeps wandering. It is unavoidable to mention that Tedo has a wandering eye. Maybe both of his eyes have trouble focusing and he must close his eyes very tightly every once in a while. Maybe the director chose this boy because his face is unique, but it is a little unsettling. Having all these landscape shots along the roads and shots of Tedo starring blankly at his surroundings does not justify the hour and a half run time or qualify for a character driven story. Rated 3/5 Stars •  Rated 3 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Audience Member A little slice of Georgian life, and a pretty crappy life it is, all peeling paint, crumbling concrete, and poor people behaving badly. Perhaps I would have appreciated it more if I were up to speed on the Georgian-Abkhazian War and its geography, but I wasn't. How can such a tiny country have THREE breakaway republics? Also, the film featured the worst performance by a child actor I have ever seen. Rated 2/5 Stars •  Rated 2 out of 5 stars 01/14/23 Full Review Audience Member A little boy has realized what is the most important thing through a journey to find his father. Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 01/30/23 Full Review Read all reviews

The Other Bank

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