Gondola

Gondola, dir. Veit Helmer, 2023 Germany/Georgia, 85 min., no spoken dialogue 🙂

Sunday, June 23, 2024, 8:30 PM, New Parkway

not available in the streaming encore

Gondola

First, a couple of things you should know about this feature film. There is absolutely zero dialogue. The only spoken words in the entire film are “okay” and “hey.” For that reason, there are also no subtitles. The entire story is conveyed through body language, with just a few grunts and such. The scenery is of the real-life cable car connecting the town of Khulo (in the Adjara region of southeastern Georgia) to the village of Tago, only about a mile away but otherwise accessible only by footpath. The cable car was built in 1985, despite looking decades older. The film, however, takes place between two unnamed towns.

The cable car line has three employees: the boss (a grumpy, unkempt man) sits in the booth and looks after the machinery, and two conductors ride in the gondolas and collect fares. There are two gondolas, always moving in opposition to each other, so the conductors only see one another briefly as the car going up passes the car going down. One of the conductors has recently died, and a young woman is hired to replace him, alongside the young woman already in that position. The two, having little else to do between rides, create ever more elaborate decorations and interactions, getting progressively more flirtatious.

The slow build-up of tension between the women is a gentle simmer for most of the film. There are lots of cute interactions not only between the two conductors, but also with other locals at either end of the line and along its path. It’s a pleasant ride, but at times frustratingly lumbering without the aid of dialogue to move the story along. I will tell you that I enjoyed it much more once I bumped the playback speed to 1.5X, but of course you won’t have that option in the New Parkway.

Recommended for beautiful scenery and many fun plot points, but only if you have the patience.

• IMDb • Official website • Filmmaker • Twitter • Instagram • Facebook • preview • other •