The Color of Pomegranates

Sayat Nova

Soviet Union

1968

74 Min

Color

1.37:1

Armenian

Currently 4.4/5 Stars.
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CAST Sofiko Chiaureli, Melkon Aleksanyan, Vilen Galstyan, Giorgi Gegechkori

One of the greatest masterpieces of the 20th century, Sergei Parajanov’s The Color of the Pomegranate, a biography of the Armenian troubadour Sayat Nova (King of Song) reveals the poet’s life more through his poetry than a conventional narration of important events in Sayat Nova’s life. We see the poet grow up, fall in love, enter a monastery and die, but these incidents are depicted in the context of what are images from Sergei Parajanov’s imagination and Sayat Nova’s poems, poems that are seen and rarely heard. Sofiko Chiaureli plays 6 roles, both male and female, and Sergei Parajanov writes, directs, edits, choreographs, works on costumes, design and decor and virtually every aspect of this revolutionary work void of any dialog or camera movement. —IMDb

Director

Sergei Parajanov

One of the 20th century’s greatest masters of cinema, Sergei Parajanov in the 1960s made two masterpieces in a row: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964) and Color of Pomegranates (1968). Both established him as a phenomenon with no analogy in the art world.

Parajanov was born on the January 9, 1924, in Tbilisi, Georgia, USSR, to an ethnic Armenian family. His father was Iosif Parajanian and his mother was Siranush Bejanian. In 1945 Parajanov traveled to Moscow and entered the directing department at VGIK, one of the oldest and most highly respected film schools in Europe, and studied under director Igor Savchenko and later Aleksandr Dovzhenko in Kiev, Ukraine. Parajanov moved to Kiev, where after a few documentaries (Dumka (1957), Zolotye ruki (1957), Natalya Ushviy (1957)) and several narrative films (Andriesh (1954), Ukrainskaya rapsodiya (1961), Tsvetok na kamne (1962)) he created the magnificent “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors”, which won countless international awards… read more

He left for Armenia to film the documentary Hakob Hovnatanyan (1967), and then in 1968 he created “Sayat Nova”, his masterpiece. “Sayat Nova” was banned by Soviet authorities, re-edited and re-named “The Color of Pomegranate”. In December of 1973, the Soviet government arrested Parajanov and sentenced him to five years in hard labor camps. A large group of world-famous artists, filmmakers and activists protested and Parajanov was released, but only after having served four horrific years in the Soviet penal system. Poet Louis Aragon’s petition to the Soviet government was instrumental in securing Parajanov’s release.

Parajanov returned to Tbilisi, but the regime continued to keep him away from cinema. During and after prison Paradjanov created extraordinary collages, drawings and numerous other art works, now frequently exhibited worldwide. In 1984, however, political conditions started to change and, with the help of Georgian intellectuals, the government allowed Parajanov to create the multi-award winning Ambavi Suramis tsikhitsa (1984) – 15 long years after “Sayat Nova”.

In 1986 Parajanov made yet another multi-award winning film, Ashug-Karibi (1988), based on a tale by Mikhail Lermontov, and dedicated the film to his friend Andrei Tarkovsky. His stay in prison had crushed his health, however, and he passed away in July of 1990, leaving his final masterpiece “The Confession” unfinished. It survives in its original negative in Parajanov: The Last Spring (1992) by his closest friend Mikhail Vartanov.

Parajanov’s friends and and colleagues such as Federico Fellini, Tonino Guerra, Francesco Rosi, Alberto Moravia, Giulietta Masina, Marcello Mastroianni and Bernardo Bertolucci were among those who grieved his death, yet today Sergei Parajanov remains not very widely known. Few who saw “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors” or “Color of Pomegranate” have not been forever influenced by the unseen beauty created by the genius. —parajanov.com

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Jacob Swanson

12Feb12

Loved the film, truly a visual poet at his finest. It was distracting to watch the horrible transfer by Kino and wonder how much more amazing the film would look if Criterion picked it up... It's certainly a film worthy of a good transfer and the Kino transfer is almost offensive to the film itself.

Connor Burke

12Feb12

I would rather spend 74 minutes awaiting my death in the cold, alone, locked in the trunk of a serial killer's car.

Jyoti

7Feb12

Lush.

fiona_huffman

22Jan12

The Colour of Pomegranites: like dreams and moving paintings. Like Ken Russell's Mahler, it is a biography of emotions and atmospheres and things that cannot be expressed with words and a concrete sequence of events. It is an insider look rather than an ousider, superficial look, and ultimately tells one much more than if the film had been a traditional narrative following the poet's concrete life from the outside.