Some Interviews on Personal Matters, which in Finland has only been shown in special screenings, is a great sample of Lana Gogoberidze’s vast filmography. This “proto-feminist” portrayal of a working wife’s experiences in 1970s Soviet Georgia is a unique find from outside the mainstream of the Soviet productions of its time and is the director’s most well-known achievement internationally.
Some Interviews on Personal Matters is a painful analysis of the living situation of forty-year-old Sopiko, journalist and mother of two teenage daughters, all living in Tbilisi, now the capital of Georgia. What is one to do, when work requires one to always be on the move, and there are grocery stores to wait in line in and housework to be done – all while one’s marriage seems to be falling apart?
Gogoberidze has said that the film contains autobiographical elements. What makes Some Interviews on Personal Matters exceptional is that there are few films that explore the Georgian intelligentsia of its time, from a female perspective, depicted fairly realistically and in a Tbilisi milieu, shot in a partially documentary style.
The main role is played by a true Georgian film star, Sofiko Chiaureli, familiar to many from Sergei Parajanov’s avant-garde classic The Color of Pomegranates (Sayat Nova, 1968). Sofiko was the daughter of renowned veteran director Mikheil Chiaureli, and her first husband was Giorgi Schengelaia, director of the brilliant Pirosmani (1969).
Timo Malmi