Sorry, this movie sucks

Perfectly adorable

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES (Armenian, Նռան գույնը) -- AKA "Sayat Nova", Viewed at 2014 Yerevan Golden Apricot IFF Director, Sergei Parajanov, 1968. RT 79 minutes. Languages of the poetry: Armenian, Geogian and Azeri Turkish 32E0CC90-FBBD-4A04-9EF6-1C87A431AD42 Generally regarded as one of the greatest masterpieces of the 20th century, the "Color of the Pomegranates" is a dazzling pictographic biography of the famous 18th century Armenian troubadour Sayat Nova (King of Song) revealing the poet's life more through the visualization of his poetry than a conventional narration of the events of his life. Or, one might even say that Parajanov simply used the poetry of Sayat as a launching pad to trip out on his own kind of unique cinematic poetry. However you look at it the result is a memorable film experience. The eleventh annual installment of the Yerevan International Film Festival opened last night with a grandiose red carpet invitational gala at the Yerevan opera house and the screening of a digitally restored print of this magnificent but all too rarely seen film, a one of a kinder that resists classification. The Color of Pomegranates is in structure a metaphoric biography of the many sided prolific Armenian poet, musician, courtier, and eventually monk, Ashug Sayat-Nova, (King of Song) revealing the stages of his fantastic life visually and poetically rather than literally. The film is presented as a virtually silent movie with active tableaux depicting Sayat's life in eight chapters: Childhood, Youth, The Court of the prince, The Monastery, The Dream, Old Age, The Angel of Death and Death. There are sounds and music and occasional singing but almost no dialogue. Each chapter is indicated by a title card and framed through both the director's imagination and Sayat Nova's poems. Georgian actress Sofiko Chiaureli plays six roles in the film, both male and female.Among other things this film celebrates the survival of Armenian culture in the face of oppression and persecution. Sayat was executed and beheaded when he refused to renounce his Armenian Christianity before conquering Persian invaders. Visually luscious with many images that are highly charged such as blood-red juice spilling from a cut pomegranate onto a cloth and forming a stain in the shape of the boundaries of the Ancient kingdom of Armenia -- dyers lifting planks of wool out of vats in the colors of the national flag, and so forth ... This film is on many critical lists of the greatest films of all time. A dazzling festival opener. Parajanov, who was a maverick Soviet film director working often in the Ukraine and Georgia was constantly hounded by the Soviet establishment, but he is a national hero here in Armenia with a museum devoted entirely to him alone. His abstract non- linear films were regarded as provocations by the Soviet censors who couldn't even understand them but assumed that they must be subversive because Parajanov himself absolutely refused to toe the party line in his private or artistic life. As a result he had to spent much time in Soviet jails which limited his total output, but all of his films are regarded as landmarks of one kind or another and will all be shown here, an unusual opportunity to catch up with the rarely seen works of a little known cinema master.

one of films who could represent rare examples of profound gracious beauty. because it is an embroidery of image and sound and civilization, a refined homage to a great Armenian poet. and the high point of Paradjanov work. a gem of wise trip in heart of things. a film for memories. for the admirable style to use pieces from old fairy tales and dreams, for the splendid science to use the silence as key for discover profound emotions, as definition of life and spirit, creation and fate. The Color of Pomegranates is more than an art film. it is an experience. and affirmation of an cinema art who remains, after decades, unique, profound, seductive scene by scene.

Only a poem. Delicate and soft, carpet of symbols and silence, travel in the womb of myth and a form of childhood's definition. Difficult to understand without the Caucasian civilization notions, it is fall in the respiration of an age which lives, in small dose, in everyone. A masterpiece, at first sight story of an Armenian poet, the movie is travel in the essences of usual pieces of life. Nothing forced. Nothing fake. A ritual of lost memories, sketch of a way to be more that shadow. And a beautiful invitation to discover Sayat Nova's poetry. For me is one of the movies required. As spring wind, green apple taste, warm of grandmother kitchen, lace of old feelings, morning of Chistmas eve.

Almost everybody talks about the film's beauty and the difficulty of its understanding. It's true. But the difficulty is not from the director's pretension or other shortcomings. When this film was first released in Soviet Union, it was shown in third-rated theaters and with limited number of prints. It was not an original version of Sergo Parajanov, because it was re-edited by another director(director's version is said to have been lost for ever, after frequent showing in professionals' circle). The film's title was also changed--"The Color of Pomegranates" was the title which the administrators of USSR's cinema policy selected to deny "biographical" character of the film. In fact, we can see at the very first title that says "This film is not a biographical film about Sayat Nova...". In short, they didn't admit such an extraordinary approach in making a film about historical important persons. Parajanov's artistic intention apparently went too far, ahead of his time. He wanted to identify the classic poet with himself through the magical play of cinematography, multi-layered mirror-like structure made of image and sound. "Sayat Nova"--it's me", wrote the director in his screenplay by his own hand. Soviet censorship may have cut some shots or shortened some episodes, to make meanings and intention,which originally were clear,remain ambiguous. For example, Sayat Nova's anxiety for his Christian homeland threatened by Islamic enemies(this theme is clearly developed in the film's scenario recently published in Russian).Parajanv, an artist indifferent to politic issues, didn't think that religious theme, as well as aesthetic "anomaly", might be very dangerous for Soviet directors after the end of "time of thaw". Thus the film could'n be a full realization of authors's original scenario.Nevertheless,the difficult situation didn't distort the film's concept and vision as a whole. "Sayat Nova" is still brilliant art of work,and, as many masterpieces of Cinema, will overcome Time by its beauty.