The Beginning of a Beautiful Relationship

Dover Kosashvili’s “Late Marriage” will assuredly rank as one of the cleverest, most deceptively amusing comedies of the year, marking the remarkably confident feature debut of its writer-director, who was born in Soviet Georgia in 1966 and emigrated to Israel with his family in 1972. One of a handful of Israeli films that are truly unconventional and of universal appeal, “Late Marriage” is also sure to cause a stir for a love scene that is one of the longest and most erotic, tender and passionate ever to occur in a serious film.

Set in Tel Aviv’s Georgian emigre community, “Late Marriage” concerns a middle-aged couple, Lily (Lili Kosashvili, the director’s mother) and Yasha (Moni Moshonov), who become increasingly anxious about getting their son Zaza (Lior Ashkenazi) married. Good-looking and personable, Zaza is earning a doctorate in philosophy and has managed to reach the advanced age--to his parents, at least--of 31 still single.

It’s not for his parents’ want of trying: They clearly have arranged countless meetings with potential spouses for their son, and he has dutifully gone along but without accepting any of them.

What we know and Zaza’s parents don’t is that he is caught up in an intense affair with Judith (Ronit Elkabetz), a 34-year-old Moroccan Jewish divorcee with a 6-year-old daughter.

Zaza promises her that once he has his doctorate he will introduce her to his parents, but he’s kidding himself as well as her. Marriage to a divorced woman is out of the question in the Georgian emigre community, and that she is older than Zaza and has a child are huge negatives in themselves. But they are so deeply in love that Zaza has slipped into a double life.

Kosashvili understands the power of simplicity and has the talent and imagination to sustain long sequences of people merely sitting around and talking. A lengthy and quietly hilarious set piece shortly into the film finds Zaza, his parents and assorted aunts and uncles crowding the tasteless living room of a potential bride’s family.

The discussion between the two families is formal, ritualistic and tribal, much like a business transaction and not a little crass; at times Yasha speaks, in her presence yet, of the beautiful, notably self-possessed 17-year-old candidate (Aya Steinovits Lalor) for marriage to his son as if she might be a broodmare instead of his possible daughter-in-law. Neither Zaza’s nor the girl’s family is forcing them into marriage, but they are hoping strongly that the two comply.

Kosashvili sets a droll comic tone, then follows it with Zaza and Judith’s lovemaking, which reveals the depth of their feelings and a level of trust that allows them to be completely vulnerable to each other; we are left to feel they really are an ideal couple. The director then pulls the rug out from under us with dizzying adroitness.

Kosashvili is able to generate fear and humor simultaneously, to maintain a steadfast detached compassion for one and all, and to elicit the most natural yet fully drawn portrayals from his cast--all with rueful, witty grace. “Late Marriage” marks the arrival of a unique artist in world cinema.

Unrated. Times guidelines: complex adult themes, nudity and lengthy lovemaking.

‘Late Marriage’

Lior Ashkenazi...Zaza

Ronit Elkabetz...Judith

Moni Moshonov...Yasha, Zaza’s father

Lili Kosashvili...Lily, Zaza’s mother

A Magnolia Pictures presentation of a Franco-Israeli co-production. Writer-director Dover Kosashvili. Producers Marek Rozenbaum, Transfax Film Production and Edgard Tenenbaum, Morgane Production. Executive producer Udi Yerushalmy. Cinematographer Dani Schneor. Editor Yael Perlov. Costumes Maya Barsky. Set designer Avi Fahima. In Georgian and Hebrew, with English subtitles.

Exclusively at the Regent Showcase, 614 N. La Brea Ave., (323) 934-2944; starts Friday at Laemmle’s Town Center 5, 17200 Ventura Blvd., Encino, (818) 981-9811; Laemmle’s Playhouse 7, 673 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, (626) 844-6500; and Edwards’ University 6, 4245 Campus Drive, Irvine, (949) 854-8811.