The Color of Pomegranates

(Sayat Nova)
(Red Pomegranates)

Sergei Parajanov
USSR, 1969

Digital Restoration

featuring

Sofiko Chiaureli, Melkon Alekyan, Vilen Galstyan,

Paradjanov’s paean to his Armenian heritage is an exotic mosaic of the mystical and historical that achieves a surreal effect. In tracing the life of the great eighteenth-century Armenian poet and monk Sayat Nova through his writings, Paradjanov weaves a metaphorical short history of the Armenian nation, telling of Turkish genocide, Persian invasions, and a vast migration to the Russian section of the country in the early twentieth century, all through daringly symbolic imagery. The film is an extraordinary artistic rendering of ceremony and ritual, architecture, iconography, and period music that, even for the uninitiated, works its extraordinary magic.

FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Sergei Parajanov
Based On

  • the writings of Sayat Nova

Cinematographer
  • Suren Shakhbazyan
  • Martyn Chabazian
Language
  • Armenian
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • Color
  • DCP
  • 75 mins
Source
  • Janus Films
Additional Info
  • Restored by Cineteca di Bologna/L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory and The Film Foundation’s World Cinema Project, in association with the National Cinema Centre of Armenia and Gosfilmofond of Russia. Restoration funded by the Material World Charitable Foundation.