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.