This exquisite film by Georgian filmmaker Otar Ioseliani (see also When the Leaves Fall, November 14 and A Singing Blackbird, November 21) has proved a favorite of PFA audiences even without subtitles, so we are especially pleased to present a newly subtitled print. In Pastorale, the story of a visit by a string quartet to a small village introduces the theme of interaction between town and country, treated by Ioseliani with characteristic wry humor and a visual style reminiscent of Renoir. The film's subtext is a bold look at the conditions of women in the village. Albert Johnson comments, “The determination to convey Georgian life in the most truthful manner possible is indicated with cinematic understatement.... Ioseliani's sharp perceptions are constantly aimed toward sardonic juxtapositions, in the subtlest sense, to establish those wistful ironies of human behavior that exist when cultural patterns coexist behind invisible barriers.... The village is not at all cozy-cute but unflinchingly grubby; the mud, poverty, insouciant pigs, goats and chickens, plus the eternal outhouse, are just there--the labor, too, for the women do everything without modern conveniences....”