In a small, somewhat surreal Russian village, a mysterious woman is put on trial for repeatedly digging up the body of Varlam, the town's recently deceased ruler. The trial progresses and the townspeople learn that the woman's parents perished under Varlam's vicious reign of terror along with other innocents. As her ghastly revelations gradually reveal the truth about Varlam's monstrous inhumanity, the film is transformed into a searing expose of the brutal repressions and heroic sacrifices of the Soviet Union's Stalinist era.
Source : www.lib.berkeley.edu/
