Monanieba

The best filmed indictment of the Stalinist regime I know. The director does not lead the viewer by the hand and by frequent use of symbols he forces the viewer to switch on their grey cortex. In its time, the formative years of perestroika, it was an absolute blast; bold and unprecedented. (08.05.2003)

The vast majority of film fans associate the title Repentance with the incomparably newer film of British-French production from 2007. If I remember correctly, only a few films have amused me as much as Tengiz Abuladze's did. The expression of concentrated boredom and embodied despair in the eyes of the audience during the screening of the film has deeply stuck in my memory. In the mid-80s, when the film was released in wider distribution, it became not only a film event but a social event, where everyone who wanted to be popular simply had to see Repentance. The problem is that it is a typical club intellectual film that is difficult to digest by a wider film audience. I would be a great optimist if I said that 5% of the viewers "got" the film, while 95% of them were at most disgusted. That doesn't change the fact that everyone praised it. It earned its place in film history for being the first film indictment of Stalinism. However, it's full of metaphors and symbols and has a dysfunctional story... As an introduction to the era of Stalinism, films like The Feasts of Valtasar, or The Night with Stalin and Burnt by the Sun work much better. Repentance is an overly long, poorly edited film that can be screened at a philosophical faculty, but not in regular distribution. Overall impression: 40%. (14.01.2008)