The Eccentrics · reception & legacy

1974 · Eldar Shengelaia

How The Eccentrics has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

Soviet censors saw right through its whimsy: the release was held back and confined to small club screenings, and Shengelaia and co-writer Rezo Gabriadze were refused permission to show it abroad. Today it's cherished as one of the gems of 1970s Georgian cinema — the suppressed satire that outlived the system it needled.

Its footprint

Its afterlife runs through its collaborators: fans of Kin-dza-dza! and Mimino trace screenwriter Rezo Gabriadze's fantastical streak back to this film, with a score co-written by the great Giya Kancheli as a bonus.

Where it stands

A deep cut of Georgian cinema — adored at home, and passed around abroad as a 'trust me' discovery among cinephiles working through the Shengelaia brothers.

★ Did you know? Though its plot looked harmless, Soviet gatekeepers caught the subtext — eccentrics locked up by the state, at a time when real dissidents were confined to psychiatric wards — so the film was kept off big screens for years and barred from export.