A Georgian village, 19th century. A Poet has a vision of Good, in the form of a woman in white robes, and Evil, in the form of a brute man hiding in shadows. The Poet tries to reform the villagers to stop killing animals and fighting with neighboring tribes, to reform them towards good, but gets rebuked... Khevsureti, a clan holding a town on the hills, sends Aluda to punish Mutsali from the neighboring clan, the Kistins, for stealing their animals. Aluda kills Mutsali, but refuses to cut off his right hand, as the tradition orders, because he realizes Mutsali has a family, and does not want to desecrate his corpse. Aluda is thus rejected by his clan when he returns, his house set in flames... In a mountain town, Jokola meets the wandering Zviadauri and invites him to be his guest at his home. However, when the local Kistins identify Zviaduri as the enemy clan, they tie him up, bring him to a desolate place and kill him, despite Jokola's objections... The Poet does not know how to bring good to the world, but accepts the message of Good that kindness can be found in every person.
If there is one spiritual analog to the abstract art-film "The Plea" by Tengiz Abuladze (brilliant Stalinist satire "Repentance"), it would be Pasolini's "Theorem": both present a highly subconscious tale that is aggravated by allegorical images that speaks about some universal human issues—and in this case, it is the problem of evil. "The Plea" is remarkable by unraveling almost like a completely different movie once you watch it for the second time, with scenes and images taking on a second, deeper meaning later on. It is framed by a story of a Poet who has a vision of Good, embodied in the form of a woman in a white robe, and a vision of Evil, embodied in the shape of a brute man hiding behind shadows. He is disturbed by the existence of evil in the world, but Good tells him: "I am alive as long as you are alive." Profoundly awakened, the Poet tries to reform people to become good, but the villagers scold him: "You say that killing animals and felling trees is a sin. Why consider it a sin if God has given it all to man?", as the camera shows a shot of the Poet standing over a lamb, almost as if he is trying to protect it. The villagers continue: "What shall we do, then, to those who trample on our land?" It immediately contemplates how difficult it is to maintain civility if both sides see the other one as the enemy, and refuse to try to understand and cooperate with the other. How to keep up a pacifist society if it can be destroyed in an instant when just a couple of brutes can attack them with force and cause an angry backlash?
The two stories within this framework are of two men trying to understand and reach out to the other side, the enemy village / clan. In the first story, Aluda rejects the tradition of desecrating the enemy he killed, and is thus shunned by his own kinsmen. In the other, a mountain village kills a stranger for being from the enemy clan, even though he meant no harm. Both these stories tell of a fundamentalist dogma in which primitive men react violently to any kind of people trying to cause a change, a progress from their dogma of "we are good, everyone else is evil". The whole movie is thus a giant contemplation on trying to conquer evil within yourself and having the courage to do something good, even if it is not socially acceptable. While weird and alien, Abuladze's film is filled with wonderful shot compositions of the mountain settlements (huge contrasts of close ups of a person with tiny people in the far background walking down the mountain; the snowy landscapes...), but also with some disturbing imagery (a bull with a cut off head rolling down the hill). It also has some neat moments, such as when Jokola tells the stranger: "My village is just within a stone's throw". In the finale, men are shown digging graves, while the Poet laments such a state of mind which just causes more and more deaths. The woman is shown hanged, but as she falls, the light of the Sun is revealed above her, illuminating the camera. The woman then appears walking on the meadow, almost as a triumph of good: it cannot be killed, as long as there are people doing the right thing, it is alive—any person dedicating his or her life to creation, instead of destruction, keeps goodness alive. "The Plea" may seem frustrating at first, but the longer you endure it, the more you will get addicted to it. It is not meant to be fully understood rationally, but subconsciously. It is as close to a visual poem as it gets.
Grade:+++
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