The Colour of Pomegranates
| The Color of Pomegranates | |
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DVD cover
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| Directed by | Sergei Parajanov |
| Screenplay by | Sergei Parajanov |
| Based on | Poems by Sayat-Nova |
| Starring |
Sofiko Chiaureli Melkon Aleksanyan Vilen Galstyan Giorgi Gegechkori |
| Narrated by | Armen Dzhigarkhanyan |
| Music by | Tigran Mansuryan |
| Cinematography | Suren Shakhbazyan |
| Edited by | Sergei Parajanov M. Ponomarenko Sergei Yutkevich |
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Production
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| Distributed by |
Criterion (US) Cosmos Film (France) Artkino Pictures (US) IFEX (US) |
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Release date
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Running time
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78 mins. (Armenia) 73 mins. (USSR release) |
| Country | Soviet Union |
| Language | Armenian, Georgian |
The Color of Pomegranates (Armenian: Նռան գույնը) is a 1969 Soviet film written and directed by Sergei Parajanov. It is a poetic treatment of the life of the 18th century Armenian singer Sayat-Nova. It has appeared in some scholarly polls of the greatest films ever made.
The Color of Pomegranates is a biography of the Armenian ashug Sayat-Nova (King of Song) that attempts to reveal the poet's life visually and poetically rather than literally. The film is presented with little dialogue using active tableaux which depict the poet's life in chapters: Childhood, Youth, Prince's Court (where he falls in love with a tsarina), The Monastery, The Dream, Old Age, The Angel of Death and Death. There are sounds and music and occasional singing but dialogue is rare. Each chapter is indicated by a title card and framed through both Sergei Parajanov's imagination and Sayat Nova's poems. Actress Sofiko Chiaureli notably plays six roles in the film, both male and female. According to Frank Williams, Paradjanov's film celebrates the survival of Armenian culture in the teeth of oppression and persecution: "There are specific images that are highly charged — blood-red juice spilling from a cut pomegranate into a cloth and forming a stain in the shape of the boundaries of the ancient Kingdom of Armenia; dyers lifting hanks of wool out of vats in the colours of the national flag, and so on".
The director had claimed his inspiration was "the Armenian illuminated miniatures. I wanted to create that inner dynamic that comes from inside the picture, the forms and the dramaturgy of colour." Parajanov once made a speech in Minsk in which he asserted that the Armenian public very likely did not understand The Color of Pomegranates, but then said that people "are going to this picture as to a holiday". His close friend Mikhail Vartanov has maintained that Parajanov's misunderstood cinematic language is "simple and only appears to be complex" and he partly demystified it in Parajanov: The Last Spring.
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Wikipedia