The Wet Sand Café sits on the waterfront of a Georgian beach, a regular haunt for the retired community that lives there.  On the outside, it seems like an idyllic community, but when Eliko is discovered to have hung himself, secrets and prejudices begin to come to light as his granddaughter, Moe (Bebe Sesitashvili), enters the tight-knit community to gather the deceased man’s things and arrange for his burial. 

Wet Sand was directed by Elene Naveriani and co-written with Sandro Naveriani.  The film, running 115 minutes, is a slow-burn drama that investigates a traditional valued community as they reckon with the sense of “it can’t happen here.”  The tragedy, however, is not just the death by suicide which their shared faith instructs is a sin, but that Amnon (Gia Agumava), the owner of Wet Sand, had been in a clandestine relationship with Eliko for years.  The Naverianis’ script is unwavering in its stance that blissful ignorance does not erase another’s existence and they are not shy in condemning that mindset.  They do not place the burden of blame solely on the people of the shore town, it is shown here to be generational thinking, but the characters are not allowed to fall back on that as an excuse.  In this way, it is a rare, spiritual cousin to films such as Alvaro Delgado Aparicio’s Retablo (2017) or Ernesto Contreras’ I Dream in Another Language (2017) that study how the traditional mindset which oftentimes condemns homosexuality held by the older generations affects its LGBTQ+ peers who were forced into a life where they had to love in secret. 

Sesitashvili and Agumava share the leading roles in the film as they both begin to discover things about the departed Eliko and the community together and they find in themselves the resolve to continue despite the difficulties they encounter.  It is a tentative relationship at first, and as it unfolds and grows deeper, it is a driving force behind the otherwise quiet piece.  The two are able to convey so much emotion and pain in their physical performances and while neither are especially showy, they are incredibly poignant and affecting. There is a subtlety in their performance that matches the tone of the script perfectly. 

The “third wheel” of the narrative comes in the form of Amnon’s sole employee at Wet Sand, Fleshka (Megi Kobaladze).  Kobaladze has a difficult and thankless role, here, but her character carries one of the core messages of the entire film.  Shortly after our introduction to her, we see her depart the café wearing a jacket emblazoned with “FOLLOW YOUR FUCKING DREAMS” in bold black letters on the back.  It is heavy-handed, sure, but Fleshka is the only one in this town willing to make waves and stand up – boldly – for what she wants.  Fleshka unlocks the latent desire within Moe and Amnon to embrace their own truths and live their life to the fullest and purest extent they can and not give any credence to the closemindedness of the neighbors.  This is evident in how their arcs begin to unfold as Moe enters into a relationship with Fleshka and how Amnon becomes more defiant of the community’s social norms as he goes more public with his relationship with Eliko. 

One of the most surprising things about Wet Sand is that the relationship is not the only secret at play here.  Given the death by hanging, there is not much question about who is responsible for Eliko’s passing, but what remains a central mystery is the motive.  What drove this reserved and peaceful man to take his own life?  As more and more details come to light, it requires Amnon and Moe to come closer to each other and find support in one another.  While that may not have ever been the intention of Eliko when he set this sequence into motion, it sets the stage for an unexpected morality play that occupies much of the final act of the film and concludes with a harrowing penultimate sequence that offers a grim trajectory for the future. 

Wet Sand is a reserved piece that opens unassumingly enough but blossoms into a larger tragedy.  It has its silver lining in the relationship formed between Moe and Fleshka which highlights society’s baby steps towards progress and acceptance, even if the community which the film studies is not afforded that same benefit.  Finding itself stuck at the crossroads of morality, Wet Sand is not looking to solve any grand philosophical questions, and it is that commitment to simplicity that allows the narrative to take on the amount of weight that it ultimately does and not feel self-serious or pretentious.  It is examining the fallout of the actions of one man and how it affects a community – of friends, of family, of neighbors – and it is a phenomenon that occurs every day, all across the globe as people pass and leave loved ones behind.  Our relationships and our actions reverberate in the lives of those around us, even when we are no longer on the same physical plane.  Our actions, and as the townspeople here are shown, our prejudices, have lasting consequences far greater than we may understand until it is too late. We can only hope to learn from these mistakes and grow into a more accepting and loving species before it is too late.