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Directed and edited by Paul Devlin, this terrific documentary describes a Kipling-esque colonialist adventure that begins in the year 2000 when the AES Corporation, a Virginia-based electricity-distribution company, arrives in the post-Soviet nation of Georgia, high in the Caucasus. Settling into the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, AES has grandiose plans to solve the impoverished country’s electricity crisis. First problem: to get Georgians to pay their electric bills, something they didn’t have to worry about under Communism. Second problem: to secure the cooperation of the corrupt government of President Eduard Shevardnadze, a sleazy ex-Communist. Nothing works out as AES expects. The Georgian people turn out to be as enterprising as they are impoverished, and they find innumerable ways of getting their electricity free. And Shevardnadze gets overthrown after the film is completed. But give AES points for trying, and the AES representatives we follow through this film points for being a colorful, ironic lot, far more interesting than the usual stiff-necked capitalists. (85 minutes)
BY GERALD PEARY
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