Uploaded April 2014 | Updated September 2026, 4 hours ago
The mayor of a small Georgian town in this allegorical film is disinterred and placed his son's garden by a local woman. She does this again and again, insisting that he should never be laid to rest, for when he was alive he was responsible for a reign of terror that led to the disappearance of many of her friends. In this scene the heroine mounts her defense in court, featuring a flashback to the early years of Varlam's rule, before he had her artist parents arrested and killed. It comes with the Russian voiceover used in most Soviet theaters. The film was held back from Soviet screens for two years, until the policy of glasnost opened the way to audiences at home and abroad.
The mayor of a small Georgian town in this allegorical film is disinterred and placed his son's garden by a local woman. She does this again and again, insisting that he should never be laid to rest, for when he was alive he was responsible for a reign of terror that led to the disappearance of many of her friends. In this scene the heroine mounts her defense in court, featuring a flashback to the early years of Varlam's rule, before he had her artist parents arrested and killed. It comes with the Russian voiceover used in most Soviet theaters. The film was held back from Soviet screens for two years, until the policy of glasnost opened the way to audiences at home and abroad.
