It's almost impossible to appreciate the extraordinary conditions which inspired this Soviet political allegory, and which (after four years in limbo) allowed it to finally be released. But is it worth the necessary mental arithmetic required to understand it as a native Russian might? Certainly the film is a worthwhile barometer of (then) current Soviet attitudes, but most of the dramatic potential in the scenario is wasted on transparent symbolism and too many ponderous soliloquies into the nature of sin and guilt. It wants to be a satire of Josef Stalin's bloody dictatorship, but the story is little more than a simple political fantasy, set in a nameless city where the corpse of the recently deceased mayor keeps reappearing in public, prompting several flashbacks to the tyranny and oppression of his life in power. The daring comparison of Stalin to Hitler must have been heady stuff for sheltered Soviet filmgoers, just then coming to grips with glasnost, but for the rest of us the most memorable aspect of the film might be its striking poster art.
Review of Repentance
