MUBI

The Color of Pomegranates is a movie that will be in strict defiance of full comprehension for mostly everyone in the world; I would imagine that one would need a vast and intricate knowledge of both Christian symbolism and Armenian culture to get everything out of this film that the artists intended, neither of which I possess. For the first while viewing the movie I was appreciative but reserved in my actual enjoyment of it: I kept feeling as though there was a core meaning to the film that I didn’t have the education or insight to understand and as a result it retained a somewhat hollow feeling to me. Then about two thirds of the way through something clicked; I was able to find the heart in the movie and move with its rhythm, allowing the wonder of the film’s sensory aspects to engulf me as I believe the filmmakers intended.

The Color of Pomegranates is totally unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The closest comparison I can make would be to Dali and Bunuel’s collaborations but this movie makes something like The Golden Age look downright pedestrian by comparison. There is no real point to attempting to find the movie’s meaning, or even attempting to create your own meaning from the film’s composite parts. It is a movie, I believe, that is meant to be experienced entirely as color, movement and sound that form a tapestry which has hints of the divine but is thoroughly inscrutable in nature. Turn off the lights and clear out your mind: You’re about to embark on one of cinema’s most beguiling, intoxicating enigmas.

“Sayat Nova” (The Color of Pomegranates) by Sergei Parajanov is unlike any movie i’ve ever had the pleasure to view before. I resembles a poetic, surrealistic dream. Through the 73 minutes of a film, the entire life of a man is unraveled. The art director is radiant. At times, I found myself shocked by the pure beauty of the shots I was viewing. Some of the uttermost exquisite images ever made in film are in “Sayat Nova”. Its complex dreamlike world will make it hard to understand for some viewers.

Overall, I couldn’t look away from the screen for a second. Never, have I seen the past depicted this exceptionally well on screen.

5 stars

This film is like an intersection between film, painting, poetry, and modern dance. The combination is stunningly powerful and the images are fresh, striking, and moving. What Parajanov succeeds in doing here is to use the materiality of objects as props for emotional resonance. Yes, that sounds pretentious but I don’t care. What’s at work here is not really symbolism since symbolism implies a kind of distance between the symbol and what is being symbolized. Here, the resonance strikes you as soon as you see them (or they might not strike you at all, depending).

But there is also humor in these compositions… and a constant sense of surprise as what you see on the screen morphs and changes in sly and deceitful ways… and the structure is vague but definitely there… you can feel an arc to it, though it is not a narrative arc by any means. It is more like an emotive arc.

My recommendation: try it out. If you don’t like it within the first 10 minutes, then turn it off. It’s either your thing or it isn’t, I really can’t see anybody feeling lukewarm about this.