The Wishing Tree

Abuladze's tenth film is a magically sustained fantasia about life in a Georgian village on the eve of the revolution, poetry rather than narrative thrust carrying it from one incident to another. 
The film is based on Giorgi Leonidze's short stories. The textures of folk legend and striking visual allegory permeate "The Wishing Tree", an episodic pastorale set in a pre-revolutionary Georgian village and spanning four seasons in the lives of various village characters. Some twenty-two stories are woven into the narrative, which centers on a beautiful young woman who is forced to marry a man she does not love; her unsanctioned love for another leads her to ritual disgrace and sacrifice. Georgia (USSR) 1977