‘Otar’ is sad but affirming

From its very first frames, director Julie Bertuccelli’s debut feature film, “Since Otar Left,” is commanded by the performance of Esther Gorintin. A Polish-born 90-year-old living in France, Gorintin made her acting debut at age 85 in Emmanuel Finkiel’s film “Voyages.” Gorintin’s on-screen presence is so natural and enveloping that it immediately raises the question of how many more films she might have lighted up had she found her way to the screen earlier in life.

There is something sturdy and reassuring in Gorintin’s face, and though her stooped appearance emits a certain sadness, she still radiates resolve, kindness and understanding. Her character, Eka, is the matriarch of a family struggling to cope with life in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, where ironclad efficiency has given way to a piecemeal existence. Living with her middle-aged daughter and young granddaughter, Eka waits eagerly for each precious letter or phone call from her son Otar, a former medical student now scrambling to get by without a visa in Paris. When news arrives that Otar has died in an accident, Eka’s family decides to shield her from the news, concocting fake letters to maintain the ruse that he’s alive and well. Eka, her health failing, then sells her one valuable possession, a collection of rare books, to fund a trip to Paris to see her son one last time. Miraculously, each of the three women finds what she is looking for, more or less, turning a seemingly futile voyage into the first chapter of lives renewed.

Besides Gorintin’s remarkable turn, the film features fine performances as well from Nino Khomassouridze and Dinara Droukarova as Eka’s daughter and granddaughter. Willfully quiet and understated, Bertuccelli’s film is rich in emotional detail, deeply moving and heartfelt without ever tipping over into melodrama or histrionics, a bittersweet valentine to the tender pains of longing and loss.

-- Mark Olsen