The Prayer aka The Plea

The Prayer aka The Plea

1967. USSR. Directed by Tengiz Abuladze. With Ramaz Chkhikvadze, Spartak Bagashvili, Rusudan Kiknadze.One of the great films from Georgia—and the USSR as a whole—was featured at the 1975 London Film Festival (nearly a decade after it was made), where Brian Baxter noted: “Quite surely a masterpiece and one of the most strikingly original and beautiful films ever made. It is shot in the deepest blacks and almost blinding whites, tightly compressing its complex tale of love, hate, and revenge. The screenplay is taken from [two poems by Vaza Psavela] (. . .) Abuladze has managed to convey the ‘epic’ quality of the piece by superb use of the harsh landscapes and the integration of the characters within the surroundings.” In Georgian; English subtitles. 80 min.