Power Trip

Throughout the documentary film Power Trip, wires are a prominent visual motif. There are shots of huge wires spreading out of power plants and looping through transistors in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. There are numerous images of smaller power cords crisscrossing through the buildings of the capital, splicing into and off of each other. In one sequence, an AES electric company employee provides a tour of a completely homemade (and totally illegal) electrical grid, which provides electricity to an entire apartment complex in the Georgian countryside. It will not be easy to fix. Untangling such an intricate web of cords and transistors is an apt metaphor for the story of Power Trip. The documentary is Paul Devlin's compelling examination of the rebuilding of post-Soviet Georgia's scarred infrastructure, seen primarily from the point of view of the American-based electric company AES. In 1991, Georgia was the first of the Soviet republics to declare independence from Moscow; during the following years the country was ravaged by chaotic Civil War. The region became relatively stable only after former Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze became president, although the country's rampant institutional corruption by no means disappeared. Towards the end of the 1990s, the newly capitalist Georgian government became interested in privatizing Telasi, and eventually contracted AES, the largest independent power company in the world. AES-Telasi was headed by Mike Scholey and implemented with the help of project manager Piers Lewis, a college friend of Paul Devlin. The film documents this costly enterprise, as AES struggles to renovate the outdated Telasi's equipment and get the citizens of Georgia to pay their electric bills. It lends equal focus to the hardships of the citizens themselves, whose daily lives are worsened by substandard housing facilities, a weak economy and government officials who are given to frequent abuses of power. In the post-Enron world it has become common to equate corporate giants with satanic monsters, but Devlin takes pains to cast AES in a positive light, and with good reason. He does not shy away from portraying the anguished plight of the Georgians whose power is initially cut by AES in order to bring about debt payment. Yet he also illustrates AES's impressive examples of corporate responsibility. When the Company moves in to take over Telasi, an estimated 90% of its customers are not paying for their electricity. The company invests millions of dollars into repairing wiring throughout the country and installing power meters in all buildings at no charge to the citizens of Georgia. Its employees come across as cheerfully idealistic, even caring. Mike Scholey in particular seems genuinely concerned with the plight of the Georgian people, struggling to make Telasi a viable and dependable service provider. Piers Lewis, the film's unofficial star, comes across as being having the commitment, cheer, and irreverence of Scholey. He vows not to cut his hair until at least 50% of the customers are paying, and thus spends most of the film looking like the most productive hippie to ever grace the screen. The Georgian employees that he trains view him with a mix of respect and amused bafflement. AES's company motto is to spread authority through all levels of their organization, giving wide discretion to even the lowest ranking employees and technicians. It's an innovative and admirable approach to business, and one which is as alien to former Soviet employees as snowman are to Pacific islanders. One of the funniest moments in the movie is a scene in which Louis attempts to give a dynamic speech on empowerment to a roomful of middle-aged Georgian workers who soak in his message with all the enthusiasm of comatose geriatric patients. This clash of modern feel good capitalism and old school Soviet ideology is the central conflict of Power Trip, and it permeates many of the stories that Devlin documents. The movie is as much about Georgia's rocky transition from Soviet style communism to Western capitalism as it is about the nature of the energy business. The people of Georgia have good reasons for not wanting to pay their electric bills. Devlin interviews Georgian citizens and local journalists who emphasize the harsh reality that an electric bill of even 24 US dollars per month is a terrible expense for people who may earn as little as $15. Under the Soviets, Georgian citizens did not pay for their electricity and still had reasonably good service. After the fall of the USSR, short circuits and brownouts quickly became a fact of life even for those Georgians who did pay their power bill. The weak economy and general chaos that has marred the newly independent Georgia has led some citizens to nostalgia for the past. In many of the interviews with Georgians a sense of bitterness over the current state of their country is strong. In one particularly memorable instance, the film crew stumbles upon an angry Georgian man delivering a small polemic against Western capitalism in the middle of an open-air market, declaring "We had it so much better before." While it is tempting to cast blame on the greedy agents of capitalism for the woes of Georgia, the filmmakers offers a compelling argument for governmental corruption being the chief source of Georgia's problems. Devlin's interviews with citizens, technicians and journalists paint a picture of widespread bribery and nepotism that has carried over from the Soviet era to become an alarmingly systemic problem. At one point, while Tbilisi's overtaxed power grid is struggling against a crippling string of blackouts, the film crew covers a tense meeting between AES and the government's Energy Minister in which the government officials admit that many large and prosperous businesses in the capital are receiving electricity without paying any bills. By intercutting shots of public protests and small riots, Devlin evocatively suggests a dynamic of a powerless power company, a people strained to the limit and an institutional authority too callous to give a damn. Power Trip is the latest success in what has been a very fruitful year for documentary films. Though this low-budget movie lacks the high production values of Fog of War and the tight story arc of Capturing the Friedmans, its attention to detail and frequently colorful characters make it just as memorable. At 86 minutes, it does feel a bit short, not quite long enough to bring closure to the many plot threads it introduces. However, the sorts of questions this film asks (regarding issues such as economic ideology, domestic unrest and corporate strategy) do not have clear-cut answers, and it would seem unreasonable to expect Devlin and his crew to provide them. It is enough to pose these queries in a provocative manner, which Devlin does in spades. Power Trip emerges as a fascinating look at an agreeably unusual company, as well as an injured but still vibrant nation.

Kelly is an English senior