The Color of Pomegranates (1969)
Review and Summary of The Color of Pomegranates / Նռան գույնը (1969), directed by Sergei Parajanov
I’d been meaning to watch this movie for a long time, but only got around to it on my Criterion account. Recently I’ve been fascinated with the culture of the Caucus region, specifically with Armenia and Georgia. When COVID-19 is done, I’m thinking about making a nice trip to either one or both of the countries when I’m not as broke.
The Soviet director of this film, Sergei Parajanov, is Armenian-Georgian, showing how that there was such major cultural diversity in the region that was once the Soviet Union. It truly was a major mash of religions, cultures, and regions.
Which is why this film got majorly censored in the USSR, since Armenia and George particularly tend to skewer Christian and this movie used a lot of religious imagery—a sin in the communist country at the time.
The Color of Pomegranates is known to be one the best films ever made. I will say in advance that it’s definitely not palatable to the everyday movie-goer. Someone would be confused to watch a film like this, one that is literally just art with a minimal amount of dialogue and actual plot that’s directly handed to you as the viewer.
This is not a movie you watch once for the plot. You watch for the beauty and then return to it for the plot.
Let’s begin this review.
Content
Parajanov, writing in the 1970s about The Color of Pomegranates, wrote that it was inspired by the concept of miniatures in art, especially Persian ones. Because there is little dialogue involved in the actual movie, you can really begin to see this inspiration as you pause the scenes and take a closer look.
Every single scene is meticulously blocked, every image and person representing something or someone important in the grand arc of the narrative.
We see lots of religious imagery, as I mentioned before, which you may or may not see because of the copy you’re watching (the USSR version censored all of that), lots of traditional songs sung in the background.
Almost all of the dialogue is like poetry—it flows like the river and is very high in its diction. Which makes sense because of who this movie is about: Sayat-Nova.
He is a 1600s poet and troubadour in Armenia, one who is revered for his work. The intent here is to not make a normal biography. It is to make art out of the life of an artist, which then makes this an absolutely beautiful visual treat. The actual plot of the film is split by the different eras in the poet’s life.
These are the sections the movie is split into: Childhood, Youth, Prince's Court, The Monastery, The Dream, Old Age, The Angel of Death and Death. Naturally, this follows the course of his life in a way that the images and colors shift with it as well, becoming a chameleon encoded in the language.
You’re not meant to understand this movie. You probably know nothing about Armenian culture or the poet himself before going into this movie.
But you’re getting a crash course lesson on Armenian culture even if you know it or not. Perhaps you came into this thinking about the other Soviet directors of the era, like Tarkovsky, and think that this is either going to be sci-fi or some form of brutal realism. You’re not getting that in this film either.
Having looked into the poems of Nova after watching this movie, then returning to the movie for a second time, it’s incredible to see how much of the actual poems are encoded into the film itself. Most of the artistic-based dialogue tends to be in song, not of Nova’s work, and we don’t actually hear Nova compose any poems out loud.
Instead, we see the poems written on the screen in a way that announces their presence but then condemns them to the violence of being silenced.
We see men hovering over holes, peacocks, bleeding fruit, lots of symmetry and its counterpart. It’s layering visual metaphors, starting with the bleeding pomegranates, which is a very specific symbol for blood.
One of the most striking symbols to me was the red lace, which many have seen the single cropped shot of, where the woman hovers black and red lace over her mouth. That was one of the most striking shots I’ve seen in a long, long time.
The characters also don’t really move. If they do it’s slow, methodical, almost like a snake. Often a woman will gaze directly into the camera, almost as if she’s asking the audience what they think about the situation.
But there is almost always the singing that they’re set to, although we don’t see who’s singing. We also see the same actress, Sofiko Chiaureli of Georgia, appearing as many of the characters.
She’s just costumed and dressed differently, even cross-dressing to appear male. I thought that was brilliant, since in our shared theatrical past we see cross-dressing to be a common characteristic.
Overall Thoughts
This isn’t a film you watch for entertainment or plot. You want to watch these kinds of films because they’re art, they’re culture, and they’ll steal all the breath you have left from your mouth. The Color of Pomegranates is a glimpse into a culture many don’t know about, one that has been prosecuted for centuries, and forces us to confront it due to the lack of dialogue.
Each and every shot is a work of art, one meticulously arranged and constructed in order to get the maximum effect. Is there a code to crack these series of vignettes and the images within them?
There’s some code in the words of Parajanov and of the poetry of Nova. But not everything can be explained easily, which is honestly okay. Just enjoy the film. Allow yourself to be immersed in it.
