CiNEMERCATOR - Sergei Parajanov The Colour of Pomegranates 1969
Filmlover,
Merthe Voorhoeve,
Andreas van Riet,
Maaike Hasselaar
& Elisabeth van Vliet,
each are programming 1 precious film per month. That's 4 precious films per month!
CiNEMERCATOR
doors open 19:00
start 20:00
ticket 3€
4-3
Sergei Parajanov The Colour of Pomegranates 1969
The Color of Pomegranates is one of the most singular works of late-1960s cinema. Made in the Soviet Union at a moment when artistic expression was both cautiously permitted and tightly controlled, the film resists conventional narrative altogether. Instead of telling the life of the 18th-century Armenian poet Sayat-Nova in dramatic scenes, Parajanov constructs a sequence of visual tableaux; iconic, symbolic, liturgical.
The film unfolds like a series of illuminated manuscripts brought to life. Each frame is composed with painterly precision: flat perspectives, frontal figures, ritual gestures. Dialogue is sparse, meaning is carried by texture; wool, stone, fruit, fabric- and by the repetition of symbolic objects. Parajanov directs with absolute control of image and rhythm. Actors often appear less as characters than as embodiments of states; youth, faith, longing, mortality. Sofiko Chiaureli, in multiple roles, becomes a fluid presence across gender and age, reinforcing the film’s dreamlike structure.
The film stands at the edge of modernist cinema, alongside Tarkovsky and Pasolini, yet it feels even more distilled, it does not seek immersion but rather contemplationof as an experience of sacred art.
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