The Color of Pomegranates (1969)

A super-stylized, surreal biography of Armenian troubadour Sayat Nova, whose life is depicted through non-narrative amalgamations of poetic images.

Director:

Sergei Parajanov

Writers:

Sayat Nova (poems), Sergei Parajanov

Stars:

Sofiko Chiaureli, Melkon Alekyan, Vilen Galstyan

1 win.

Cast

Credited cast:
Sofiko Chiaureli	...	Poet as a Youth / Poet's Love / Poet's Muse / Mime / Angel of Resurrection
Melkon Alekyan	...	Poet as a child (as M. Alekyan)
Vilen Galstyan	...	Poet in the cloister
Gogi Gegechkori	...	Poet as an old man (as Giorgi Gegechkori)
Spartak Bagashvili	...	Poet's father
Medea Japaridze	...	Poet's mother
Hovhannes Minasyan	...	Prince
Onik Minasyan	...	Prince
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Yuri Amiryan
I. Babayan
Medea Bibileishvili
T. Dvali
Aleksandr Dzhanshiyev	...	Monk
Guranda Gabunia
Zh. Gharibyan

Storyline

One of the greatest masterpieces of the 20th century, Sergei Parajanov's "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.

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Plot Keywords:

poet | 18th century | armenian culture | surrealism | russia | 

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Taglines:

Besides the film language of Griffith & Eisenstein cinema hasn't discovered anything revolutionary new until The Color of Pomegranates - Mikhail Vartanov

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Genres:

Biography | Drama | History | Music

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Official Sites:

Parajanov-Vartanov Institute [United States]

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Armenian Azerbaijani Georgian

Release Date:

27 January 1982 (France)

Also Known As:

The Color of Pomegranates

Filming Locations:

Haghpat monastery, Alaverdi, Armenia

Company Credits

Production Co:

Armenfilm, Yerevan Film Studio

Technical Specs

Runtime:

79 min 72 min (Commercial Cut)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Shown at the 1980 New York Film Festival without English subtitles (However for later release subtitles were added.) 34 years later, the masterpiece returned to the New York Film Festival, and was introduced by Martin Scorsese who moments earlier accepted the 2014 Parajanov-Vartanov Institute Award - named after Sergei Parajanov and Mikhail Vartanov - on behalf of the Film Foundation for the restoration of The Color of Pomegranates (1969).

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Quotes

Poet in the cloister: My brain is all delusional; oh, may my enemy, too, be like in misery
[as]
Poet in the cloister: I am.
[English subtitles to Armenian voiceover]

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Connections

Featured in Boy with a Movie Camera

User Reviews

the best movie I've ever seen!

The absolute 'must see'...no movie will ever look the same after seeing this one. This is the alphabet of understanding the art of motion pictures. Before I saw this movie, I thought that movies can be fun, sad, yearning or heart-warming, that they are entertainment for heart, mind or fantasy, that they can have some message, teach you something, that they can improve your morals, that they can hit great technical achievement, but I never realized that movies belong to the family of real arts and that they can hit into deepest,the most pure, the least understanding parts of human soul. Pictures that are changing, moving, pulsating, travel in its own rhythm with its very own sounds and music- that is the art of motion pictures, that is the art of what we call "The Movies". And what is more natural and more appealing to human kind then sense of movement, breathing, living? I can only thank to Sergei Parajanov for helping me to understand this, for opening my "third eye" for movies.