Le repentir

For the first time I've seen this movie in 1988 under, rotting and toothless, but still red regime in little movie in Bytom, Poland. Without subtitles but only with man reading the dialogs from the book. Atmosphere was tensed and with the taste of conspiracy. This time Pokajanije was for me thrilling experience with breathtaking performance of Macharadze and Ninidze. Once again I watched it in TV few years later and I've found a little dated and emasculated in uncovering communist's crimes. But still it was great cinematic, beautifully filmed experience. Now, I've ordered DVD in dvdplanet (it's still unavailable in Poland) and I'm really curious for my nowadays impression.

25 dec 2004

Today I've watched the movie once again after the reading of Montefiore's book "Stalin - the court of the Red Tsar. In this book I've found the story of Kawtaradze family. Sergo Kawtaradze, old revolutionist and comrade of Stalin during the great purge, in 1936 was arrested with his wife Sofia. Both were cruelly tortured in Lubianka. Daughter Maya, 11 years old, wrote many letters to Stalin, begging for the parents' life. After 3 years of imprisonment Kawtaradzes were freed but still in danger of arresting again. Few weeks later suddenly at 6 AM Stalin & Beria came to Kawtaradzes. Stalin kindly spoke with daughter Maya. In her memories she wrote that he was charming and kind. He also sang a song with "pleasant tenor". They also ate dinner (Stalin ordered it in the best georgian restaurant in Moscow, Aragwi. I'm sure that episode in the movie when Warlam and Doxopulo visits Sandro's home is loosely based on this event

After the death of Stalin, folks in the Soviet Union were allowed to express their feelings towards his reign of terror...at least to a point. However, the government also was concerned that these complaints might lead to complaints about the current system--and this is probably why "Repentance" was banned for several years after it was filmed. It does attack the Stalinist era and mentality--but apparently those in power at the time weren't willing to allow such a film to be released.

"Repentance" is a very surreal sort of film--one which has many story elements that seem dreamy and unreal while the rest of it is quite literal. While there were purges, seeing the 20th century purges carried out by knights in armor, a living statue of Justice and many other story elements are dream-like and strange. This is not really a complaint--just an observation. The film looks almost like Dalí or Buñuel added a few touches here and there...just a few.

The story begins in the present day. The beloved mayor of a Georgian town, Varlem, has died and folks come to his funeral to pay their respects. However, several times after the funeral, the body of this man has been taken from the crypt and placed in his yard! After the third time, they catch the woman responsible and she is taken into custody. At the hearing, she openly admits having done it and tells a story of long ago--when Varlem first became mayor. At that time, he made a name for himself persecuting the innocent--and the story is about how this impacted the woman personally.

Following her long tale, the story goes to the present day. The hypocrisy and evil of Valem's friends are examined as well--including one case about a man who struggles between Atheism and Christianity. Under Christianity, he SHOULD feel guilt--and he ultimately gets to meet the Devil (this is pretty weird...and clever). Other folks all begin to confront their own part in Varlem's reign of terror.

Instead of this film directly attacking Stalinism, it clearly attacks these tactics on a smaller scale. And, I am sure it was not unintentional that Varlem looked much like a bloated Hitler! A very strange but daring film. While today it might be seen as very tame, back in the mid-1980s it must have caused the filmmakers a lot of problems--and potentially prison. Quite clever but quite slow and strange. Well worth seeing--especially if you lived through this era.

This is a very good film. It works on several levels. I don't know whether this was intended by it's authors or no, but the general outline of the film has obvious Alice in the Wonderland (or Through the Looking-Glass) allusion. The confectioner woman imagines (or dreams about) a story of revenge and justice (a real cruel fairy tale adventure full of evil and good characters, colorful and strange images) and as in `Alice' right when the story gets kind of `out of control' (grandson kills himself with grandfathers riffle, son digs out the corpse of his father.) we get back to the cosy room of confectioner, from where our adventures to the past and future have begun.

It was really interesting to see the story of Totalitarian regime through this `fairy tale' angle. They make a lot of films that are meant to be much more historically precise than `Repentance', but most of them are flat and look more like TV dramatizations of some definite actual events than the works of art. And `Repentance' is an art-film in a very good sense of this word.

The closing sequence of Old Woman walking up the street (looking for the Temple - justice, freedom, happiness?) accompanied by heavenly classic music is one of the most beautiful film episodes I've ever seen.

Joseph Stalin's purges were one of the most horrific chapters in Soviet history. A famous movie about this period is Nikita Mikhalkov's "Burnt by the Sun". An equally important one is Tengiz Abuladze's "Repentance". This one emphasizes not only the terror visited upon the population, but the efforts to expose the truth and prevent whitewashing of those who committed the genocide. The subject is a man who shares physical similarities with Hitler and Stalin, but is based on Lavrentiy Beria (one of Stalin's acolytes). As mayor of a town in the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, he doesn't hesitate to persecute those whom he deems disloyal. Years later, a woman goes to unusual lengths to reveal the truth about his handiwork.

Not surprisingly, the movie couldn't get released immediately. It wasn't until after Gorbachev came to power that it got a release. I'd say that the ugly parts of history are more important to know about that the pleasant parts of history, to ensure that they don't get repeated. I understand that Beria was particularly vicious.

We don't get to see many movies from Georgia. I wish that I could see more of them. Part of it is that I like getting to see cultures that we don't often get to see, but I would also like to have more insight into their perspective on things. As the 2008 war made clear, Russo-Georgian tensions didn't end with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Anyway, it's an outstanding movie. While it is a bit long, the plot makes up for that. I recommend it.

My only complaint about Tengiz Abuladze's REPENTANCE (English title) is that I am uncertain what was real and what was fantasy. However, since this was undoubtedly his intention, I cannot properly call it a complaint. Outside of David Lynch films, I have never seen more perfectly executed dream imagery than that of REPENTANCE; the beauty of these sequences is accentuated by the surreal atmosphere of the various dreamers' waking lives. The cast is uniformly excellent, the premise unique, and much of the dialogue resonates with beauty, despair and universal truth, often mingled with humor. No character is utterly devoid of sympathy, nor is any character entirely sympathetic. All is ambiguous, just as it is in our own so-called "reality".