The color of the pomegranate

Movie
German title	The color of the pomegranate
Original title	Nran Guyne (Саят-Нова)
Country of production	USSR ( Armenia )
original language	Armenian
Publishing year	1969
length	73 minutes
Rod
Director	Sergei Parajanov
script	Sergei Parajanov
production	Poor movie
music	Tigran Mansuryan
camera	Suras Shachbasyan
cut	Sergei Parajanov M. Ponomarenko Sergei Yutkewitsch
occupation
Wilen Galustjan : Sayat Nova (Poet) in the monastery Sofiko Tschiaureli : Poet as a youth, muse of the poet, love of the poet, angel Melkon Alekjan : poet as a child Georgi Gegetschkori : Poet as an old man Spartak Bagashvili : father of the poet Medeia Japaridze : mother of the poet Grigori Markarjan : monk with books Yuri Merdenow : horse rider

The color of the pomegranate , original title: Նռան գույնը (Nran Guyne), Саят-Нова ( Sayat Nova ), is a Soviet feature film that was shot in Armenia in 1969 under the direction of Sergei Parajanov .

action

This unusual film biography of the Armenian musician Sayat Nova , who lived in the 18th century, consists of 8 chapters , which depict the stages of his life with the help of strongly surrealistic tableaus. There is hardly any talk, most of the words can be found in the subtitles, which, due to their lyrical ambiguity, hardly produce any meaningful context. Nevertheless, a certain line can be recognized: it haunts the poet and singer from childhood to his death at the end of the film. There are many recurring elements here, such as ruined monastery ruins; tattered old books; Ablutions, slaughtering, feeding; ancient Christian customs; Pain and death; Sensuality in both art and the brutality of miserable life; Icons; etc. All these images penetrate deeply into the Christian-oriental culture of Armenia, are carefully and strictly put together and their content shines in the colors of blood. This also includes scenes in which sheep are slaughtered and chickens are thrown on the ground in their final twitches, as their heads have just been cut off. In between you can see the rigid, tired and hypnotized faces of the people, whose bodies stretch and tug in enigmatic poses. Lamentations and barren noises from handicraft and nature can be heard all the time. It's an impressive film in which the images rule.

Production and publication

The color film premiered in Yerevan (Armenia) in October 1969 under the title Nran Guyne and on August 29, 1970 under the title Саят-Нова in Moscow . In the Soviet Union it had over 1.1 million viewers.

In Germany the first performance in the fall of 1984. On June 29 In 1988, the film was in the BR-TV broadcast.

In the GDR , the film was shown for the first time on October 11, 1988 in the Babylon cinema in Berlin as part of the Camera Studio cinema program .

criticism

The Lexicon of International Films writes that this is both a playful and serious experiment in dealing with image and sound. Banned for many years in the Soviet Union, the film is now one of the most remarkable examples of recent Soviet cinema.

Web links

• Parajanov.com
• The Color of Pomegranates in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• The color of the pomegranate at kino-teatr.ru
• The color of the pomegranate at filmzentrale.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Neues Deutschland, October 5, 1988, p. 8
2. ↑ The color of the pomegranate. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed November 6, 2017 .