In a small Georgian town, a prominent local official named Varlam Aravidze dies. He is given a formal burial, but the next morning his corpse is found dug up and propped against a tree. The body is reburied, only to be dug up again. This happens repeatedly.
Eventually, the culprit is revealed to be Ketevan Barateli, a local woman who works as a cake maker. At her trial, she admits to repeatedly exhuming Varlam’s body and explains her actions through an extended flashback that forms the main narrative of the film.
The flashback reveals that Varlam was once the town’s mayor, a charismatic but ruthless dictator who combined cultural sophistication with brutal totalitarian control. He was responsible for the arrest, torture, and death of Ketevan’s parents. Her father was an artist and intellectual who opposed Varlam’s regime. Under Varlam’s rule, the town’s historic church was destroyed and replaced with a “cultural center.”
The story then follows Varlam’s son Abel and grandson Tornike as they grapple with their family’s dark legacy. Tornike, upon learning the truth about his grandfather’s crimes, becomes deeply disturbed and eventually commits suicide. Abel, tormented by guilt and his father’s legacy, faces his own moral crisis. In the film’s present timeline, Ketevan is ultimately released from custody.
Repentance* (Monanieba მონანიება in Georgian) ends with an elderly woman asking if a road leads to a church. When told it doesn’t, she wonders, “What good is a road if it doesn’t lead to a temple?”.
*The film was shelved for several years by Soviet authorities before being released during the Perestroika period, becoming one of the most significant films of that era for its bold criticism of Stalinism and totalitarianism.
After watching the film Repentance by Abuladze, many people are left with a sense of confusion – like after experiencing a series of vivid and emotionally charged episodes, symbols, or meanings that leave fragmented and unordered traces in memory, not yet forming a complete, unified whole. It is similar to what happens after reading a poetic excerpt: your thoughts may not be entirely clear, even though the impression can be very strong. In order to understand what I have seen, I will turn to the text itself, focusing on its structure, syntax, and composition.
The film is structured around three interconnected plots. The innermost plot centers on the heroine’s testimony in court, where she’s accused of desecrating the ashes of the deceased Varlam Aravidze. In her testimony, she accuses Varlam of orchestrating a mass terror to which she was a witness, and her parents were victims.
This testimony is nested within the broader narrative of the trial itself, which, as we learn, exists only in the heroine’s mind. It plays out in her conscience, as a possible scenario imagined by her, in which a moral catastrophe unfolds. If this were real, it would drive Varlam’s grandson, Tornike, to suicide, and his son, Abel, toward repentance and self-awareness. This would only happen if the heroine were to carry out her judgment on Varlam, condemning and destroying not only the conscience of the people, but also the best part of them, as well as many who didn’t resist him.
The first plot (the heroine’s testimony in court) and the second plot (the trial as imagined by the heroine) both serve as internal monologues. However, while her court statements are imagined, the second plot – her internal reflection on the trial – becomes real and tangible, presented as an allegory directed specifically at us, the audience.
This meta-text, which frames the entire film and is no longer filtered through the heroine’s memory or imagination, represents the core of Abuladze’s Repentance. It is the shortest section among the three plots, yet it plays a crucial role. This “frame” is a quiet, emotionally subtle moment set in the heroine’s home, where she lovingly and carefully makes cakes shaped like ancient churches.

The film opens with a scene in which the heroine hands one of these church-shaped cakes to a young woman arriving by carriage, passing it through a wide-open window, from hand to hand. The film closes with an elderly woman carrying a travel bag, approaching the same window. However, this time, she asks not about the cake resembling the church, but about the real church that Varlam destroyed: “What is the point of a road if it does not lead to a temple?”
The film ends here, and the immediate question that arises is: why is this compositional frame necessary? What creative purpose drives the director to introduce this third layer, which prevents the film from concluding with a traditional resolution or climax, like the exhumation scene, which would align more with the spirit of ancient tragedy?
Theoretically, it’s intriguing to consider whether the question itself—one that seems to suggest the connections in this work are rationally determined – is even accurate.
After all, artistic thought is inherently hyper – rational, much like a dream, where logic and structure give way to a more fluid, subconscious reasoning.
And in one of his interviews, Abuladze himself testifies that he first saw the most interesting images and fragments of his future work in a dream: “I was jumping like a madman. I was writing them down, and then, freed, I would fall asleep again. The next morning, I was afraid to read them—what if I was just babbling? But it turned out that the truth had come in my dream.”
Beautiful. However, in the film, there is also structure – there is syntax to the composition that does not express itself sensually and does not come from a dream; there is “punctuation” – marks placed not by sub- or unconsciousness but by the self-consciousness of the director, which bind, like signatures, the unity of reason and fantasy.
To understand their logic, one must envision a film without this framing – a film that would conclude with the self-destruction of evil and, as paradoxical as it may sound, with the moral defeat of the heroine who brings this evil to the foot of historical justice.
The idea that evil is born like foam, on the lips of the angel who conquers it, since “everything that fights and conquers is partaking in evil,” belongs to philosopher and cultural theorist G. S. Pomerants. And the film seems to confirm this – the moral peak of the heroic act hides a dead end: the death of an innocent person. This problem was probably first understood by Dostoevsky in Crime and Punishment, with his “child’s tear”: if you kill the old woman, you must also kill Lizaveta.
Abuladze practically continues this theme: by uprooting Varlam, we tear Tornike out of life. The film’s thought is not focused on courage, which is often insufficient for one to stand alone – against all odds – to defend the honor of the killed; this is not the hardest part, says Abuladze. The value of the deed is not in the ideal motives that dictate it (as the tradition of knighthood suggests), but in its real consequences. The person who kills Polonius in Hamlet is like a titan, unleashing a cascade of death and destruction.
Abuladze presents a world where the truth is dangerous, not because people kill for it (they kill indiscriminately and on a massive scale), but because the truth itself is lethal.
The one who reveals the truth – the accuser, the prophet – exposes the deeper issue: the inherent wrongness of standing in opposition to everyone.

Why must Tornike die, according to the logic of the second plot? He, who so fervently believes in Varlam, is overtaken by the retribution of the One “Who visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations” (Exodus 20:5). This is the immediate cause. In a close-up, the camera reveals the rifle Tornike uses to take his life, engraved with the inscription: “To my dear grandson, from Grandpa.”
Yet, this cause alone isn’t sufficient – the rifle won’t fire by itself. By exposing Varlam, the heroine indirectly pulls the trigger, becoming his accomplice, though unintentionally. And, much like Varlam himself, she didn’t intend for Tornike’s death. In a sense, she could say to him, “You were born – and for this, you are already guilty.” That would be just. But instead, she says something else. As Tornike approaches her, she sadly observes, “Look, I have ruined you too, innocent child.”
From a historical perspective, everything follows its course. The crimes of the ancestors are passed down to their grandchildren – this is the natural order. But if actions are socially and historically determined, then Varlam’s rise is also a result of past crimes. We see citizens enthusiastically setting fire to an effigy of the bourgeois, and the intelligentsia giving speeches to welcome the newly elected mayor, even as they prepare his gallows. Is there a moral measure for this inevitable chain of events? How should we judge Varlam?
The film, however, is not titled Accusation.
The widespread interpretation of it “in the accusative case” – who is to blame? for what? – is understandable in a society in transition. But it reflects more of our need to release accumulated emotions than a genuine effort to grasp what the film is trying to communicate. If, that is, we believe the film is truly communicating something new.
We learn about Varlam’s crimes through the internal plot of the film. In certain details, we recognize the traits of the main character – gestures reminiscent of Hitler, expressions that echo Mussolini, and a Georgian accent in Stalin’s Russian speech. However, if we interpret this film as a critique of Stalinism or even of abstract “totalitarianism” in general, assuming this as its main message, we would have to agree with many critics that it produces a “blank shot.”
If we are expecting revelations – many viewers were, especially given the film’s long delay, which seemed to amplify its potential for a liberating shock to the memory – the film will likely disappoint. To fully grasp the accusation, we might imagine the GULAG depicted as a documentary, showing in concrete terms what the accusation looks like. The familiar face of a leader often speaks louder than any actor’s performance.
Therefore, if we expect journalistic motives, we must concede that the film falls short – it doesn’t even address politics directly. Particularly the Stalinist era, which is so monumental (“from the taiga to the British seas”) that it cannot be captured in the scale of a small town. Perhaps Italian fascism serves as a more fitting prototype. In two shots, Tarkovsky’s Mirror conveys more about the Soviets tragedy than the entire film by Abuladze. But is Repentance really about this? Was this the director’s intention? If we set aside our own expectations and demands from the artist (which he is under no obligation to meet), and instead focus on what has truly been communicated to us, we may discover something else.
The primary crime attributed to Varlam, within the context of the internal plot, is not political. In the framework of the film, the destruction of the temple holds more significance than the mass slaughter of people. While we may not agree with Abuladze on this, we must first understand that the temple is a symbol that requires interpretation.
What is the temple? – with this question, Varlam addresses the intelligentsia of the small town, who have come to him accompanying the artist Barateli – a relative and an antithesis of Varlam. Their response characterizes the temple primarily as an artistic masterpiece comparable to Leonardo’s works, and secondarily as a replica of Svetitskhoveli Cathedral—the town’s spiritual heritage. This secular response notably omits the temple’s fundamental religious purpose as God’s house and a place of worship. While this omission might be deliberate given Varlam’s presence, the film doesn’t show Barateli or the two elderly intellectuals (whom Varlam calls the “old guard”) expressing any deeper religious connection to the temple.
However, the film does present contrasting religious perspectives elsewhere. This is evident in scenes showing young Abel praying before a crucifix and in his “pseudo-confession,” where he identifies unbelief as his primary sin. Though this confession is made to a devil figure, the very recognition of unbelief as sin demonstrates Abuladze’s clear understanding of sin and repentance.
The film’s title, “Repentance,” warrants careful consideration. This rarely used term likely holds the key to the film’s central thesis. However, the word “repentance” has evolved beyond its original religious meaning to encompass ethical and legal connotations, often being equated with simple remorse. Understanding Abuladze’s specific interpretation of repentance is crucial. If he views repentance as synonymous with remorse (as some philosophical dictionaries suggest), then sin would be equivalent to crime. But this equivalence falls short – those who understand the sin of unbelief know, as stated in Romans 14:23, that “everything that is not of faith is sin.”

The distinction between repentance and remorse is fundamental, not merely semantic. While these concepts are closely related, they remain distinct and even polar opposites in some ways. Remorse is an emotion that can be externally triggered – as in the threat “You will regret this!”
Repentance, however, is an active transformation of consciousness, verified through its outcomes.
The “fruits of repentance” manifest as spiritual renewal: a purified heart, deep awareness, inner light, and enhanced capacity for love. Through repentance, one cleanses their essential self and restores their divine nature, ultimately finding faith. While both Abel and Tornike experience profound moral crises that include remorse, their experiences don’t quite reach the level of true repentance.
The name “Aravidze” in Georgian translates to “nothing” – a fictional surname that underscores a deeper truth. Both Abel and Tornike tragically discover their own emptiness, finding their identity only in death. Their moral awakening stems from Varlam Aravidze himself. Yet the climactic scene, rather than providing catharsis, evokes an unsettling image of the dead unearthing the dead. This raises a crucial question: what path remains for Abel after exposing the root of sin?
Importantly, this entire climactic sequence exists within the heroine’s imagination – it represents her internal experience and evaluation. Though we’re not explicitly told she abandons her planned actions, her emotional journey makes clear she won’t pursue them. The transformation she undergoes isn’t primarily emotional but rather intellectual and spiritual. The Greek term “metanoia” μετάνοια (repentance) literally suggests an elevated state of mind – a spiritual ascension coupled with humility. The film suggests that true inner freedom comes from holding difficult truths while maintaining an outwardly conformist appearance – a form of humble wisdom.
The characters in the first and second plot levels remain internally bound because they find no inner peace. Their actions are driven by external forces – duty, conscience, and guilt. As Heidegger noted, the word “guilt” also implies causation. This connection highlights the tragic hero’s destiny (and indeed, the inner plot resembles classical tragedy): to fulfill fate’s demands. Only through metanoia can one who has been history’s instrument break free from its control by embracing the law of freedom.
True repentance is fundamentally free – neither legal nor moral obligations compel it. While courts may evaluate the authenticity of remorse, repentance cleanses the heart through faith in the Final Judgment.
Returning to the question of the temple’s meaning: For Abuladze, the temple appears to symbolize tradition, as suggested by the heroine distributing temple-shaped cakes to people – an act of both tradition and transmission. If the temple represents tradition as a gathering place for believers, then faith itself must be what this tradition passes down. As the apostle writes, faith is “the substance of things hoped for” (Hebrews 11:1) and, being inseparable from hope, looks toward the future.
Abuladze’s perspective on the temple differs from Barateli’s. In Varlam’s garden, Barateli sincerely views the temple as a cultural memory to be preserved. The town intellectuals’ defense of the temple becomes a defense of culture – not primarily against Varlam, but against what Spengler calls “civilization.” This civilization, though controlled by Varlam, still maintains a presence in the temple (reflected in Einstein’s “naive” speech) which Varlam has transformed into a “temple of science.”
We witness the artist’s wife wandering distractedly through this transformed temple, now filled with symbols of European civilization: masterpieces of art (including Michelangelo’s “Expulsion from Paradise”) and the symbolic pinnacle of technology – high-voltage equipment. What’s notably absent is the essential element: worship, the Liturgy.
Unbelief itself isn’t considered a crime, even from a religious perspective.
However, Abuladze argues that deliberately destroying faith is criminal.
Both Abel and Tornike, though following their conscience, ultimately reach a void – leaving Varlam, who first betrayed his conscience among the Aravidze family, to face himself. Tornike’s dying words to his father – “Grandfather had a conscience!” – highlight that Varlam, facing death, must confront his troubled conscience, leading to an inverse metanoia from paranoia to death.
Varlam embodies an Antichrist figure, inverting Christ’s attributes: his promise to “turn the whole world into a paradise,” the glass-domed garden (guarded by cherubim) opposing the Temple, and his usurpation of Christ’s role as spiritual shepherd. The eating metaphor is particularly significant: during Abel’s “confession,” Varlam eats fish, symbolizing consumption, destruction, and annihilation. (Abuladze masterfully employs such linguistic allusions throughout the film, as seen in the plumbing fountain scene where spraying water accompanies citizens’ hollow praise of Varlam, suggesting empty rhetoric.)
The fish, an ancient Christian symbol, makes Varlam’s eating of it an inverted Eucharist – a symbolic destruction of Christ. This symbolism repeats when the heroine’s neighbor, a product of Varlam’s influence, crudely consumes a cream-made temple. Yet this reveals deeper metaphorical meanings.
First, the true temple proves indestructible. Not the physical structure Varlam destroyed, but the spiritual temple referenced in Hebrews 3:6: “We are His house”. The camera’s lingering shots of multiple temples remind us that the authentic temple resides in the hearts of those who create them.
Second, we realize Varlam’s charismatic power ironically stems from Christianity itself (notably, Stalin was a seminary student). By consuming Christian culture – symbolized by the fish – he leaves his spiritual heir, Abel, with only a skeleton. This is visually reinforced by contrasting Abel’s lifeless features with his father’s vital appearance, though played by the same actor.
The metaphor of eating recalls Valéry’s observation: “Nothing is more ‘original,’ nothing more ‘oneself’ than to feed on others. But one has to digest them. A lion is made of assimilated sheep.” Yet Varlam fails to truly internalize Christ – the culture that churns within him remains alien, despite his theatrical embrace of it. This is evident in his selective reading of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 66.
When Varlam recites the sonnet, he delivers only its first part:
“Tir’d with all these, for restful death I cry,
As, to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm’d in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplac’d,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgrac’d”
He ends with “William Shakespeare. Sonnet 66,” deliberately omitting the crucial final stanzas. The first part’s anger and prophetic condemnation of a corrupt world is actually foreign to Shakespeare’s complete vision. While the omitted second part addresses the beloved – the speaker’s closest connection – the first part alone represents a rejection of God’s world (echoing Ivan Karamazov’s “I do not accept God’s world… I return the admission ticket”).

For Shakespeare, the first part in isolation would be unthinkable—its half-truth demands completion through the second part. However, for intellectuals operating within Varlam’s worldview, still influenced by Nietzschean philosophy, the moral inadequacy of such a partial reading isn’t immediately apparent. This Russian maximalism, imported from the West with works like Longfellow’s “Excelsior,” became a spiritual hallmark of the early century’s era of martyrs and executioners.
Here the text leads into Lydia Ginzburg’s memoir excerpt:
“The intelligentsia – as a group in the cause of the liberation of the people – also had its own group stimulus – social activation or even real power… Authority, sacrifice, dogmatism… Many of the great people of Russian culture did not want the revolution, they condemned the revolution. But disagreement with the status quo was inherent in the whole of Russian culture… All thinkers were ‘against’…“
Mayakovsky, who considered Blok a weeping intellectual, did not know the draft from Blok’s 1907 manuscript:
‘And we will raise them to the villas,
And their bodies will hang on the ropes,
So that the veins in their necks will burst,
And their damned blood will flow.’”
Varlam’s relationship with culture and faith reflects a deeper intellectual crisis.
His selective reading of Shakespeare mirrors his Nietzschean worldview – embracing power and rejection while ignoring redemption.
Unlike Shakespeare’s complete sonnet, which moves from critique to hope through love, Varlam dwells only in condemnation. The dual nature of Shakespeare’s sonnet – criticism followed by redemption – represents a wholeness that Varlam’s truncated reading deliberately avoids.
The passage reveals how Russia’s intellectual climate was saturated with Nietzschean thought, evidenced by three editions of “The Antichrist” being published. This “will to power” manifests in the film’s first plot through a new kind of authority – one intoxicated by “culture.” The film presents striking images of this cultural corruption: punishment accompanied by Beethoven’s Ninth, the Ode to Joy becoming a soundtrack to paradise-seeking violence, the pristine white grand piano serving as Themis’s instrument.
This aestheticization of crime emerges as totalitarianism’s signature feature, something Nabokov would later explore in “Invitation to a Beheading.”
The film cleverly uses opera arias – deeply embedded in cultural memory – to show Varlam’s corruption of art. His theatrical delivery of Shakespeare’s truncated sonnet prompts his assistant artist to dismiss them as “Comedians.” While true artists “mimic Christ” through their creative suffering, Varlam embodies the Antichrist’s role as “monkey” – a point ironically underscored by his mocking reference to clerical views on evolution (“the clergy wants us to have descended from monkeys”).
Totalitarian power doesn’t reject classical heritage – “We are not obscurantists!” Instead, it selectively preserves what it can use, from Pushkin to Shakespeare. The crucial omission in Varlam’s reading becomes clear when we see Shakespeare’s complete ending:
‘Tir’d with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.”
The sonnet’s two parts mirror the two great commandments: “Love the Lord” and “Love your neighbor” – perhaps offering a key to understanding the entire film.
The film, like life itself, offers no neat logical resolution. Neither Abuladze’s trilogy nor Shakespeare’s sonnet provides simple conclusions where good triumphs over evil. This complexity is symbolized by the prosecutor’s futile attempt to solve the Rubik’s cube, unable to separate whites from reds – everything remains interconnected, introducing the theme of collective guilt. The impossibility of forgiving Varlam becomes a trap, as refusing to forgive means following his path.
In artistic works, characters rather than authors make the crucial choices – personal decisions under specific, if hypothetical, circumstances.
The heroine’s harsh choice carries clear symbolism. Despite being denied conventional happiness, she makes temple-shaped cakes, but cannot transmit what truly sustains her – the memory of the original temple.
The destruction of this temple signifies the collapse of unifying social illusions, suggesting that believers must now rebuild the temple within their hearts. This harsh truth persists despite the film’s seemingly hopeful ending – the old woman walking toward the forest, watched by another woman with sympathy and hope. The conclusion remains bitter, even as it gestures toward possibility.
The passage explores how totalitarianism interacts with culture, particularly through the lens of Nietzschean philosophy in Russian intellectual life. The film portrays this through Varlam, who embodies power intoxicated by culture rather than opposed to it. His use of beauty, art, and opera becomes a means of legitimizing oppression – a hallmark of totalitarian regimes that appropriate rather than destroy culture.
Opera arias take on dark symbolic meaning through their association with Varlam. His cultural appropriation mirrors the Antichrist’s inversion of Christ’s message – instead of elevating humanity, it serves power. As mentioned earlier, this is exemplified in Varlam’s incomplete reading of Shakespeare’s sonnet, where he omits the redemptive second half about love and transformation. His selective reading reflects his nihilistic worldview, focused on destruction rather than renewal.
The film weaves a complex narrative about collective guilt. No one remains untouched by Varlam’s influence – even the choice not to forgive him perpetuates his legacy. This moral complexity culminates in the heroine’s inability to transmit the memory of the first temple, symbolizing lost cultural and spiritual unity. The suggestion that each person must rebuild the temple within their heart serves as a metaphor for individual spiritual renewal. Yet this path toward reconstruction proves challenging, as the collective bonds that once united people have been severed, leaving individuals to shoulder the burden of renewal alone.
Repentance explores broader themes of cultural memory, moral responsibility, and the possibility of spiritual regeneration in the wake of totalitarian destruction.
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