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Movie Review
A tense current runs through electric 'Power Trip'

By Moira Macdonald
Seattle Times movie critic

	"Power Trip" is a documentary about an American power company that inherits an out-of-control situation in Tbilisi — 90 percent of its customers will not, or cannot, pay their bills.
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Devlin, in "Power Trip," is most interested in exploring the politics of the kind of power that isn't usually discussed in documentaries — the electrical kind. In the early '90s, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the former Republic of Georgia was in turmoil. An American power company, AES Corp., purchased Tbilisi's electricity distribution company — and inherited an absurdly out-of-control situation.

Forty percent of AES' new customers, as manager Piers Lewis learns, have set up their own illegal power lines; Devlin's camera, operating in dim light, shows us spiderwebs of jury-rigged cables outside apartment buildings, dangling malevolently across any available space. Ninety percent of the customers do not — or cannot — pay their bills, accustomed to communist days when electricity was free.

Movie review Showtimes *** "Power Trip," a documentary written and directed by Paul Devlin. 85 minutes. Not rated; suitable for mature audiences. In English and Georgian, with English subtitles where necessary. The Big Picture.

As project director for the new AES division, Lewis must train his customers to pay for power — and update an office so archaic that its only records are housed in ancient file folders, worn soft with use.

Not surprisingly, the customers aren't too happy about this new state of affairs. We see footage of angry people in the streets, blocking cars and shouting. Devlin, at one point, focuses on a row of switches as a hand moves down, flipping each one off — customers who haven't paid must now face consequences. And despite encouragement from new AES television ads that tell customers, "Don't reinvent the wheel. Purchase electricity," things change very, very slowly.

Through the ever-hopeful eyes of Lewis, the story unfolds in unexpected directions, emerging as both a portrait of a changing Georgia and a study of power. A Georgian-speaking, shaggy Brit — who says he won't cut his hair until the AES collection rate reaches 50 percent — Lewis speaks of the difficulty outsiders have in understanding the Georgian way of life. Even the language, he says, is "like a secret code."

But Devlin keeps things evenhanded; he seems in sympathy with both the frustrated Georgians and the well-meaning AES employees.

Seeming almost up-to-the-minute (an epilogue is dated August 2003), the story told in "Power Trip" is still unfolding. In an original song heard over the end credits, the singer warbles, "The movie's not finished yet ... "

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com

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