The Plea

1967, 77 min.

Genre: Parable

Based on the poems “Aluda Ketelauri” and “The Guest and the Host” by the classic of Georgian literature Vazha Pshavela This film opens Tengiz Abuladze’s trilogy (“The Plea”, “The Wishing Tree”, “Repentance”), which discusses the subject of common human values using original national material. The death of heroes, the knights of truth and good, leads the Poet to the conclusion that the evil is invincible. Exhausted by struggle and privations, the Poet lays down his arms. He is visited then by all of his favorite heroes. They put out candles by dipping them into a beer cup – a ritual Khevsuri gesture meaning renunciation. And only after seeing what misfortune and harm the rejection of fighting the evil results in, the Poet takes up arms again.

The Wishing Tree

1977, 107 min.

Genre: Parable

This poetic parable is part of Tenghiz Abuladze’s cinematic triptych: “The Supplication” – “The Wishing Tree” – “Repentance”. The place is Georgia at the beginning of the 20th century. That’s how director Tenghiz Abuladze described his film: “’The Wishing Tree’ is a film about the people lit up by a dream. Every character has its own ideal. One is worshipping the skies, another the earth, some idolize the body, others elevate the spirit. Some destroy the body, others the soul…” Marita, the film’s heroine, arrived here to live with her aunt. She meets a poor young lad, Gedia, and falls in love with him. But her relatives are determined to marry the girl off to a local rich man…

Repentance

1984, 153 min.

Genre: Philosophic Drama

This last Tenghiz Abuladze film is crowning the trilogy started by the motion pictures “The Plea” and “The Wishing Tree”. In the Soviet Union, the film was put into distribution only as late as 1987, during the “glasnost” period. The film’s structure is somewhat whimsical: the action develops, as it were, outside the time framework, with no specified indication to the 1930s. In the character of dictator Varlam Aravidze, the traits of Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Beria are equally recognizable. Three generations of one family are paying for the sins of their fathers. In a totalitarian society, the first to perish are the artists, like Sandro Barateli and his wife. Years later, their daughter, Keti, avenges the death of her parents…