Repentance

This is not the kind of film that one expects to see emerge from the Soviet Union, which makes it all the more commendable. Set in a fictitious Russian village, Repentance is the story of a tyrant. The film opens with the death of Variam, a recently deceased ruler who is praised to the skies by funeral attendees, buried with all due pomp and circumstance, and found propped up against a tree in the garden the following morning. Each time Variam is returned to the ground, someone digs him up. When the culprit is brought to court to tell her story, the reasons become clear. Variam, it turns out, was a despotic ruler in the Stalinist mode, who was responsible for the deaths of the storyteller's mother and father. As the tales of horror and brutality are revealed, the effect on Variam's immediate family is explore, particularly in the relationship between Variam's son--who refuses to accept the truth about his father--, and the son's own son--who feels the moral injustice keenly, and is a harbinger of the new Soviet ethic. Repentance is a disturbing, darkly comic tale, a winner of the 1987 Special Jury Prize at Cannes. Highly recommended. (See D.O.A. for availability.)