Budapest Classic Film Marathon: The Color of Pomegranates

Director: Sergei Parajanov

Screenplay by Sergei Parajanov
Director of photography: Suren Shakhbazyan
Music by Tigran Mansuryan
Cast: Sofiko Chiaureli, Melkon Alekyan, Vilen Galstyan

Open Archives / Cineteca di Bologna

In this film based on the life of Harutin Sayadyan, the Armenian poet known as Sayat-Nova, the pomegranate is a symbol that is ever present: a whole cosmos lies hidden beneath the fruit’s inedible, armour-like and bitter skin, because each seed is its own small juicy fruit, fertility itself, creation, life... The Armenian genius Sergei Parajanov, indomitable despite his hugely troubled life, did not make a typical biopic of the poet but instead (in a way difficult to describe in words) an experimental film building on many interlinked symbols, which succeeds in evoking the spirit of the bard. “I tried to depict art in life rather than life in art,” Parajanov said of his movie, which after many vicissitudes can finally be viewed by audiences today in the form its creator imagined.

Other programs of the Budapest Classic Film Marathon in Urania >>