Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Zandra The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

adriennenoracarter Repentance is a film one would expect to come out of Perestroika and Glasnost. It is a Stalinist/early Soviet metaphor that would have never been seen before this time. The story begins in present day, or in this case 1984. In a small Georgian town, the mayor, Varlam Aravidze, dies. The seemingly important citizens of the community come to pay their condolences at his funeral. However, one day after the funeral, the corpse is found at the home of the mayor's son. The corpse is reburied . . . but is removed from the crypt a second and third time. A woman is taken into custody and put on trial. She admits to having done it; much of this part of the film is full of flashbacks focusing on Varlam's terrible reign, revealing her motives for having done it. Varlam looks like a combination of dictators. There are traces of Hitler (the mustache) and Mussolini (the black shirt), but of course he can also be compared to Stalin and Beria, two of the cruelest names known in Soviet history, both who were of Georgian origin. Varlam was the Stalinist figure, and the two other generations of his family could be considered a lot of the rest of Soviet history. His grandson clearly represents the period of Glasnost and Perestroika. He has trouble accepting what his family has done, and he commits suicide because of it (I'm sure it was not meant to be this way, but it could be considered a foreshadowing of the end of the Soviet Union). The son of Varlam is sort of everything in between Stalin and Perestroika (except the anti-Stalin Krushchev years).This was a very interesting movie; it was a little too full of symbolism, but beautifully made. It was a very interesting change watching a Georgian Soviet film instead of a Russian made Soviet film.

VR Repentance is yet another pleasant surprise among the large number of great European films. Like in Greek tragedy destiny haunts and twists the lives of the characters with endless and unseen power.The only one who defied destiny with a demonic hubris during his entire lifetime was the tyrannical patriarch Aravidze,but even he is weak in the face of death.That is,only after he dies and his body is constantly spirited away from his grave by an unseen hand(a brilliant parallel to Lenin,king Arthur-who actually never dies,only sleeps awaiting the moment when he is reclaimed and re-called by the living,Garcia Marquez's symbol of the eternal tyrant,another patriarch,who lives over two hundred years or again the Greek tragedy,where the gods were pleased and the ritual fulfilled,only if the dead were buried with all the honors. Aravidze,a Georgian like Stalin,though only the mayor of a town,is a ruthless social climber(the way totalitarianism attracts social climbers like the flames attract moths),who gradually becomes an absolute master of the town's inhabitants.Besides Stalin,the character bears a striking physical resemblance to Hitler and his rise reminds much of Hitler's:he exhaled strong personal magnetism,enchanted with powerful(even if somewhat Machiavellian)speeches,and,the more he became cruel,the more a certain petty-bourgeois crust worshiped him. Other similarities include Beria,not only being also a Georgian but also the actor depicting Aravidze looking just like him and a black shirt in Mussolini style.Strange and fascinating combination between four of the 20-th century's most influential dictators. In an age resembling both fictional 1984 and real historical periods,Aravidze surrounds himself with all the status symbols of power like a nouveau rich or a mafia boss:cruel henchmen,tasteless amounts of wealth and luxury,a mechanism of self-marketing including the cult of personality and hysterical public feasts. But the ultimate victims of this dictator,among many nameless and countless innocents,will be his own family,which not long after his death will be extinguished,ironically the only innocent member of this flawed clan,his grandson paying for his ancestor's faults by shooting himself in an unexpected act of conscience during a party including lots of champagne and music by Boney M as an highly artistic and grotesque contrast of lavish,explosive gaiety versus his haunted&troubled mind(similarly to this,present generations were intoxicated with the feeling of guilt for communism,fascism or the holocaust,only for being the descendants of the guilty ones). The excessive use of marble does not suggest as much luxury,it rather creates a cold,unfamiliar mood similar to the futuristic,minimalistic settings in Russell's The Devils:a mechanized,haunting universe where humanity is doomed. The journey in the underworld reaches the same artistic level like Dante's inferno,Dali's paintings or T.S.Eliot's poetry.The ending if brilliant-the slow,long shot of the road reminds of the closing scene from Visconti's Gattopardo;like the old desolate streets and decaying baroque buildings of Palermo,this road is a reminder of universal frailty,often useless search for justice and repentance and the inevitability and strange fascination of death.

Jerzy Matysiakiewicz 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 2004Today 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

stedrazed 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".