The Passport

Merab, a taxi driver from Tbilisi, goes to the airport to see off his Jewish brother Yasha, who is leaving for Israel. Through a mix-up he ends up on the plane himself and arrives in Israel on his brother's passport. He has no papers, does not speak the language and cannot go back. He is caught between Soviet bureaucracy, Israeli bureaucracy and the attention of the KGB. Georgiy Daneliya made the film just before the Soviet Union came apart, and it takes emigration as comedy: the answer to who belongs where depends on a piece of paper. Merab can neither stay Georgian nor become Jewish; he is the wrong man on both sides. Gérard Darmon plays Merab. The telling never lets go of the bitterness while you are laughing, as in all of Daneliya's films.