"Repentance" revolves around the death of an old tyrant, Varlam Aravidze, and the refusal of a woman, Ketevan Barateli, to leave his corpse in peace. She repeatedly disinters the corpse and at the trial disinters also the forbidden secrets of the past. Aravidze is universalised as Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Joseph Stalin, but most obviously as Stalin's fellow Georgian Lavrentiy Beria. The sense of helplessness in the face of absolute power is overwhelming and the film is a powerful evocation of the trials which the innocent majority of the Soviet population had to undergo.