Power Trip
Dave Kelly
Issue date: 1/28/04 Section: Arts and Entertainment
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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 The film documents this costly enterprise, as AES struggles to renovate the outdated Telasi's equipment and get the citizens of Georgia to pay their electric bills.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.
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.