Georgia power

The dynamic documentary Power Trip finds a telling metaphor for the entire former Soviet Union at a remote electrical substation in the Republic of Georgia. Near a crumbling housing block, the low building sprouts a thicket of jury-rigged wires used to pirate electricity for the impoverished tenants. It resembles a squid made of twisted metal and carries a high risk of electrocution.

Power Trip focuses on the travails of Georgian electricity providers and their customers, but implies that all of the post-Soviet utilities, services and politics are in the same state. Only duct tape, chewing gum and prayer hold the original structure in place, illegal shortcuts provide the only means to get necessities -- and it could kill you if you tamper with it.

Filmmaker Paul Devlin ignores anti-globalization orthodoxy in Power Trip to provide a nuanced look at the new world order and the complexities of switching from communism to capitalism. Even as the Georgians' institutions fail them, a handful of committed individuals still elicit hope.

Power Trip opens with angry Georgian protesters and shots of a skyline winking out as an energy crisis strikes Tbilisi, the ex-Soviet nation's capital city. Georgians received electricity for free under communism, but many can't pay their bills when electricity costs $24 a month and they earn an average monthly salary of $15-$75.

The American multinational energy company AES bought the nation's electrical services and provides Power Trip with enough quirky protagonists to populate a British comedy. General Director Mike Scholey's undertaker voice and demeanor conceal a genuine love for the beleaguered nation. Sunny Londoner Piers Lewis (Devlin's former classmate at the University of Michigan) vows to grow his hair until the company boosts its payment collections from 10 percent to 50 percent, giving him locks like Rapunzel.

The cast includes native Georgians such as Nino, a comely former actress turned AES employee, who serves as Devlin's tour guide. Zaal, an elderly archeology professor, describes how he anticipated the nation's upheaval and started a subsistence-level farm for wine and cheese.

When Lewis and other AES employees shut off the juice for thousands of Georgians, outraged pensioners in babushkas descend on the AES offices, complaining about the impossible costs of living. At a crowded marketplace, a middle-aged roughneck angrily denounces the Americans to Nino, who points out the difficulties of forgetting decades of Cold War propaganda against the United States.

But AES isn't out to make a quick buck, and at one point loses $120,000 a day. Its CEO evangelizes how the company's values include "social responsibility" and "fun" -- which, according to Wall Street, makes AES a bad investment. Power Trip uncovers a tension between fatalistic Georgians and idealistic but naive Westerners genuinely trying to help the turbulent nation.

Power Trip finds the real villains in the entrenched vestiges of the Communist government, represented by recently ousted President Eduard Shevardnadze. Big companies and other highly placed cronies ignore their electric bills but bribe government officials to keep the lights on, despite the frustrations of AES. The country's fuel and energy ministers embody corruption as completely as op-ed page cartoons -- one comically complains of hurt feelings when AES executives treat him with hostility. Power Trip implies that the post-Soviet infrastructure differs from the old system only by making foreign companies middlemen.

Devlin deftly puts technical details and Georgian history in context and offers an affectionate travelogue of the colorful, polyglot country. Homegrown public service announcements, bouncy techno-pop and even snarky, satirical cartoons cleverly mirror the nation's mood. But Power Trip's 90-minute running time keeps the film from recounting all the nation's troubles, and it only hints at the influence of organized crime.

The documentary paints the AES employees as almost quixotic, facing opposition on so many fronts as to make the Georgian system seem beyond fixing. Illuminating the bleak fact that electric power remains hostage to political power, Power Trip provides an entertaining, educational account of the year the lights went out in Georgia.

curt.holman@creativeloafing.com