Retired Georgian wrestler named Kakhi (Levan Tedaishvili) travels to Brighton, New York to help support his troubled son. The film ‘Brighton 4th’, directed by Levan Koguashvili has created a beautiful story about the heart of a parent’s commitment to guide his son back on track in life. ‘Brighton 4th’ is currently screening at the 2021 Pingyao International Film Festival.
It is a touching tale about Kakhi’s light-hearted character who wears his heart on his sleeve by simply being there for his son and a few others in New York. His son immigrated to America in hopes to complete his medical degree, but has found himself in a whirlwind of debt from his gambling problem. On top of that, he found a girl he wants to marry in order to get a green card to stay in America but needs the money for the wedding.
Kakhi’s character comes off looking like a stern individual the moment you take a first look at him. The moment he starts talking and bonding with his son and other characters in the film, you see this completely soft side with dry humour he has which makes him such a likable person.
The movie is considered to be a tragic comedy. A lot of immigrants from Eastern Europe are down on their luck in New York. Kakhi for some reason has a big heart in helping a lot of these people along the way in such unorthodox ways. Each conversation Kakhi encounters leads him to approach his solution that often would make a viewer wonder what the hell was he thinking. And yet, for some reason, the problems become amicably solved in a short and sweet dialogue with the opposition, giving more respect to Kakhi’s character in the film.
One of Kakhi’s biggest strengths is that he is well known in his country as a world champion freestyle and sambo wrestler. In his life, all he knew was to wrestle. With nothing else to do in his current life, he pretty much accomplished everything he did and has everything he needed. And that everything is very minimalistic. Simply put, he has his sense of dignity.
Comparing it to the other characters who he helps along the way, their situations were so problematic that their approaches to fighting within the problem gets in the way of talking and working out a solution. In contrast to Kakhi, we can see several scenes where he observes the situation and simply either walks away or hears the other person out and shows the compassion and respect he gives to them, to which we see the characters returning the respect back to Kakhi. What’s also interesting is that all the other characters are so deep into their problems, they forget about their own path of life and interest is just compounding on the debt of problems that get in the way. Kakhi was the problem solver. And he never showed he had any problems himself because he is a peaceful person and sees the good in others.
The reminders of his wrestling past are also used as a great plot device to set up scenes where he not only uses his intelligence and compassion to connect with people to solve their problems, Kakhi has a few scenes where he has the opportunity to showcase his past wrestling skillset as part of solving a problem. By no means it comes off as violent behavior on his end at all. Each scene is carefully crafted ranging from a bit of laughable absurd moments, to seriously confronting loan sharks in a respectable manner. There is no bloodshed to be seen. Only Kakhi would be able to pull this off and still gain the respect from the other characters for what he did.
Going back to helping his son and his debt problems, Kakhi showed how protective he was to him and also his wife about their worries and concerns. Acting as the middle-man between their long-distance communication, Kakhi once again takes care of the problem and holds himself accountable for any responsibility he decided to take upon himself, only to take away the problems his wife and son were holding on to. It is such an incredibly tough choice to take over the mental load on very stressful matters like his son’s debt, yet there is not an ounce of stress came out of him in any scene. This was such a great hook for the audience, wondering if he would break in the film.
The tragic comedy perfectly plays to the oxymoron of how the story unfolds throughout the film. The plot was well balanced with multiple story arcs that help reinforce Kakhi’s compassion and desire to want to help take away people’s problems. It is truly a refreshing film to watch, and gives viewer’s a lot to think about thinking less in life and just be. Levan Koguashvili directed a beautiful story, and Levan Tedaishvili perfectly executed Kakhi’s character.