Filled with many alluring glimpses of Georgian folklore and a critique of Stalinist purges that is searingly direct, The Swimmer has had a fitful history. Shot in 1981, post-production was interrupted before a Georgian version could be completed. Three years later, a shortened version of the film was released. Variety's Deborah Young noted: "The Swimmer humorously describes the lives of three swimmers, father, son, and grandson. By far the most arresting is the 1913 tale of Durishhan. A local phenomenon in Batumi, where he developed his long-distance technique by swimming after his sheep, Durishhan is able to accomplish such feats as holding his breath underwater for six minutes. No great genius, he forgets to document his feat and is laughed out of town. Durishhan's son, Dometi seems to have inherited dad's foolishness. Disaster strikes unexpectedly, when his kids innocently drop a porcelain figurine of Uncle Joe into a fishtank during a party; Papa disappears the next day... Durishhan's overweight grandson Anton...talks over the family's unhappy past with his sister. By profession he's a travel agent, but "looking for his roots in the sea," he plunges into the water in a gesture of solidarity with his ancestors. The story is consistently amusing... What comes through very impressively is a story of Georgia and pride in her history, as it dovetails not without pain into the Soviet period."