Uh, can someone who’s seen Comets and understood the ending please explain it to me? Because either something got lost in cultural translation or I’m not smart enough. Or maybe that ending was just a weird and bad choice. I would like to know which is true and also what the hell that ending means.
Comets is a Georgian film about two former teenage sweethearts who meet up again decades later. In their time apart, Nana has married and has two children and a grandchild. meanwhile, Irina has travelled over Europe and become a business owner. Their present-day conversation is intercut with flashbacks to their time as teenagers together. Despite time and distance between them, Comets wants to show its audience an enduring connection between these two women.
However, that goal of showing some timeless connection isn’t fully successful. From a story perspective, these women haven’t seen each other since they were teenagers. They’ve lived the vast majority of their life apart. When they meet again, they might as well be strangers. And this is an okay place for these characters to start. But it never feels like it moves beyond this point. There’s an awkwardness to their interactions that probably should’ve dissipated as the movie went on. It doesn’t. Whatever memories these women share, Comets fails to show them regaining any of the intimacy and comfort with each other they presumably had as teens.
A big problem with this story movie is that the actors just don’t seem to connect with the dialogue. Maybe there is a language barrier and it would sound better if I spoke Georgian but I doubt it. The ability to facially emote transcends spoken language and there’s not nearly enough of it here. The lead character, Nana is by far the most flat of the cast in this film. I see no emotion or memory on her face as she talks to a woman she once loved. As an actress, she’s too passive to bring any of her dialogue to any sort of life.
I do think the script itself is okay and the directing is good. Comets makes great use of a small budget and was hypothetically smart to scale back this story which touches on recent Georgian history to focus on two lead characters in one setting. It’s a perfectly acceptable premise executed competently. However, Comets is missing that X-factor that really makes me care about the story and draws me in. Even with a more talented lead actress, I still think the movie is missing that undefinable something that could elevate it.
And then there’s the ending. A flashback shows Nana and Irina as girls listening to a sci-fi serial on the radio. This transitions into the film presumably following that sci-fi story. Comets doesn’t have the budget to do any actual science fiction so the aliens are just women in heavy eye make-up and their space weapons are conveniently invisible. The sci-fi vignette and movie overall ends with a voiceover from a male narrator confessing his love for one of the lead alien women and saying their souls will be reincarnated. What I got from this is that Comets’ leads are reincarnated aliens? But that’s probably too literal an interpretation. Seriously, someone please explain what this ending meant.
I didn’t fully get Comets. My final thoughts are going to focus on the majority of the movie that follows Nana and Irina. Overall, this portion of the movie has a base enough level of competence but is missing that certain je ne sais quoi. The story never fully connected with me nor did the characters. It also felt like it ended before anything was resolved. Though again, maybe if I understood what that damn ending symbolized I would have a more complete and positive picture of what director Tamar Shavgulidze was trying to achieve. As it stands, Comets was primarily average and then just confusing which made for a somewhat frustrating viewing experience.
Overall rating: 4.8/10
Other WLW films in similar categories
Lovers reuniting
Dramas with few characters and lots of dialogue
> Uh, can someone who’s seen Comets and understood the ending please explain it to me?
I’m glad that I’m not the only one that didn’t get it. I thought I had accidentally hit the remote control and changed the channel
Hello,
I am Georgian, I wanted to give my 5 cents to explaining this movie.
Basically lets lay out the facts:
1. the daughter understood that her mother loved Irina, when mentioning her father laying in hospital and screaming out Irina;s name, after that, real time stopped and we went to the past, where they were watching a movie.
2. in the last scene, the movie they were listening to, is the movie that it ends with Basically, last part is movie inside a movie. basically, movie is about aliens, listen to the dialogue they are having again.
3. However, the signs of the times are almost nowhere to be read here. The author tells us about time and space with texts, not with pictures. The filming site seems to be deliberately flattened and “cleaned” of those attributes that would tell us more about the environment than the characters with their lines. Even the glasses here are colorless and transparent. Clothes – monochrome. I understand how it can be taken as a negative side, but try to take the country and culture (highly anti-love and anti-LGBTQ) and unconditional love context with it, does it change anything?
4. Every person in love is a comet. Tamar shows the dramatic perspective of the lost comets, whose voice has almost disappeared in reality (in the movie,in the last scene( inside the movie) they communicate without words, but blinks and movements), whose identity has been replaced by history and who lived someone else’s life. Who today shines less than it should shine. (both of them being KINDA unhappy with their lives without each other)
5. the dialogue inside the movie, is basically dialogue about main two characters, dialogue between two lovers.
Feel it as just an attempt to observe the characters.
Last, I just wanted to say
in the Portrait of lady on fire, there is a dialogue of “remember, dont regret”
similar dialogue is in here I will quote it and leave you with this:
– I wanted to forget
– Forget what?
– Everything
– For some time i also wanted that, then i remembered I should not forget. I am who I am because I remember.
I hope I helped you understand the movie more.
Thanks for explaining! I just watched the movie and I liked it a lot, it was the ending that was a bit confusing. The main characters did a great job though. Being born in post-Soviet countries and familiar with the LGBT taboo in movies, I wasn’t expecting much intimacy between them, but I was happily surprised to see how well they showed their feelings and connection. Their chemistry was amazing. I couldn’t find any information about the actress who played the older Nana. Is she a well-known actress in Georgia?