The letter left no room for doubt: Lisa doesn’t want to be found. Her disappearence is also a project —to photograph football fields swallowed by time and overgrown vegetation in rural Georgia. Irakli (her father) and Levani (her best friend) set out to retrace her steps, questioning strangers, animals, and the quiet goalposts along the way. Georgian filmmaker Alexandre Koberidze’s third feature is an ultra lo-fi portrait of familial conviction in motion — and of nature’s quiet defiance.
Shot on Alexander Koberidze’s own 2009 Sony Ericsson phone, Dry Leaf, which begins as a straightforward investigation of a father looking for his missing daughter in the Georgian countryside, becomes something entirely different as the film progresses. Through the repetitive nature of the father’s search, and with the help of the film’s mesmerizing soundtrack, the narrative grows increasingly abstract and transforms into a hypnotic exploration of shape, color and light.
If we allow Dry Leaf’s profoundly singular spell to flow through us, it reveals itself as one of those miraculous films that confronts us to the mysteries of being, and to the world’s overwhelming strangeness and grace. Koberidze’s gaze, as usual, is boldly traversed by openness and love, and his latest masterpiece is yet another one of his tender attempts to teach us how to perceive the world as if for the very first time.
Nabil Aouad
