"Surrealism,"
"incitement to suicide," and my favorite, "traffic in art objects leading
to homosexuality," all sound like respectable weapons in the modern-art
arsenal. In the case of legendary director Sergei Paradjanov (1924-1993),
they were grounds for fifteen years of forced inactivity and nearly five
years of imprisonment in one of Russia¡¯s many pre-glasnost hard-labor
camps. What was it about this jovial, bearlike man that invoked the
unending wrath of Russian censors? It could have been his abandonment of
wife and children to live the unashamed gay life he¡¯d apparently always
craved. And then there are the films, a dozen features working such
"troubling" territory as celebrations of Armenian (i.e., non-Russian)
culture, a Dionysian (some would say delirious) approach to his material,
a strict adherence to a no-linear-plot policy, and a general air of
rapturous and whimsical indulgence in color and sound ¡ª hardly the stuff
to further the revolution. Official reactions to the slew of hunky men ¡ª
in one case a sexy young man transformed by Svengali Paradjanov from
literal rough trade to stylized superstar ¡ª parading through the films in
various states of undress have not come to light.
Paradjanov is being
feted with the release of three of his most significant features on two
DVDs courtesy of Kino on
Video: The Color of Pomegranates on one disc, and The Legend
of Suram Fortress and Ashik Kerib on another. Despite the
intensity of his work and his tumultuous life, Paradjanov was not
prolific, partly because he wasn¡¯t allowed to be by meddlesome
authorities. These two DVDs comprise half of his feature film output, the
most notable omission being his most famous film, the 1964 Shadows of
Forgotten Ancestors, which put him on the international cinema
map.
Sympathetic response to this visionary¡¯s work has always required an
open mind and the ability to be transported by the filmmaker¡¯s captivating
imagery and grand-design ethnomusical soundtracks, which evoke both the
richness of Georgian-Armenian folk music and the high-art sounds of the
great Russian composers. For those who can find it hard to sit still for
90 minutes of feverish folktale-based tableaux, it might help to know that
Tarkovsky said Paradjanov was the only modern Russian director he
respected.
¡¡
The Color of
Pomegranates (1972) is considered the director¡¯s masterpiece, but it¡¯s
also one of his most challenging works. Nominally a biography of Armenian
poet and troubadour Sayat Nova, the film opens with a series of striking
tableaux vivant, most notably one in which the youthful Nova lies down in
what looks like a concrete gully with seemingly endless books arranged
around him, their pages fluttering fantastically in the breeze. Books are
crucial in Paradjanov, not only because they contain and hold much of the
world¡¯s artistic history, but because much of his imagery is inspired by
the ancient illuminated manuscripts that he always managed to obtain
access to. (The church apparently liked him more than the government did.)
Nova¡¯s history is rendered as a kind of interiorized bildungsroman,
tracing the boy¡¯s progress from early bookworm to apprentice rugmaker to
devotee of the female body. "I am the man whose life and soul are
tortured," reads a subtitle repeated throughout the film, but Paradjanov¡¯s
colorful vision of a rich culture in which every dress is a tapestry and
every man a handsome devil is far more upbeat than the phrase suggests.
Kino has done justice to this work with a solid transfer and a slew of
extras. The latter include a rare 1965 short (10 minutes) directed by
Paradjanov, Hagop Hoynatanian, and Ron Holloway¡¯s loving
documentary Paradjanov: A Requiem, running nearly an hour and
containing essential interviews, photos, excerpts from the oeuvre, and
drawings.
Paradjanov¡¯s much-noted hubris is clear from the start of
Pomegranates when he aligns himself with the Christian God by
invoking the creation of the world. The Legend of Suram Fortress
(1984) is less grandiose though no less mesmerizing. Less episodic and
more narratively minded (sort of) than the other film, Suram
Fortress is an almost picaresque tale of a plebe who gets his freedom
and sets off to buy that of his wife, a fortune-teller. The film pivots on
the concept that the Georgian way of life, symbolized by the fortress, can
only be saved if a young man is willing to be walled up inside it. This
metaphor for a rich regional culture threatened by an oppressive dominant
one probably was not lost on Paradjanov¡¯s detractors, but the film, with
its gorgeous Georgian landscapes and fantastic imagery, happily, has
outlived its enemies.
Also on this disc is the director¡¯s final film, Ashik Kerib
(1988), dedicated to his late friend and compadre Andrei Tarkovsky,
who also suffered tremendously at the hands of uncomprehending Russian
authorities. Based on a story by Lermontov and shot in the Georgia/Azerbaijan area that was Paradjanov¡¯s inspiration, the film is a
typical fantasmagoria of folkloric imagery whose power is heightened
immeasurably by an especially rich score of regional music. Ashik is a
handsome but impoverished minstrel played by Yuri Mgoyan, whom Paradjanov
rescued from a life of petty crime for this role. He must find
"bride-money" to marry the daughter of a rich Turkish merchant. This
simple plot gives Paradjanov plenty of room to play as Ashik encounters a
series of tests in the classic heroic mold, and play he does in such
unforgettable tableaux as a "wedding of the blind, deaf and dumb" at which
Ashik¡¯s music entrances the participants and a sultan¡¯s house where
Ashik¡¯s playing sends the guards into pyrotechnic dance displays. Ashik¡¯s
search is an immersion into the transcendent beauty and power of folk
culture, which Paradjanov fleshes out with vivid colors, elaborate
costumes and headgear, and vibrant displays of music, dance, and movement.
Even the simplest images show the triumph of nature over the temporal and
the manmade, as when falling rose petals become a resonant substitute for
the dowry of diamonds that Ashik cannot afford. Comparisons to other
auteurs who have explored this specialized field, most notably Pasolini,
do justice to neither. Paradjanov stands alone.
Some critics have seen Ashik Kerib as a parable for Paradjanov¡¯s
marginalization by the government, with the director himself represented
by the hapless lute player wandering through a blasted landscape of lost
souls. But this interpretation misses the celebratory, indeed transcendent
quality of image and sound that are the film¡¯s driving force. If
Paradjanov was not essentially reconciled to the political abuse he
suffered, it¡¯s impossible to tell from Ashik Kerib.
From
Rotten
Tomatoes
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Ashik Kerib
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The
Color of Pomegranates
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Legend of Suram Fortress