161: The Color of Pomegranates

Titles. No music. Titles. No Camera movement. Silence. Three pomegranates ooze red juice onto a white cloth.  Red equals blood. Blood equals life. Obvious visual metaphor.  A foot crushes grapes. A fish flops between two pieces of drift wood laid on the white cloth.  Now it’s three fish.  Jump cuts.  Numerous intentional continuity errors.  Late medieval/early renaissance costumes. Man kisses bird.  Poetry voiceover.  No Camera Movement! Gregorian chant.  Obvious religious symbolism.  No Dialogue! Sheep.  More Sheep.  Even more Sheep.  Credits. Silence.

          
             Above, I’ve detailed Sergei Parajanov’s The Color of Pomegranates (1968), one of the worst pieces of “world cinema” I’ve ever had the displeasure to sit through.  I’ve gone from a revue of a Bunuel piece, to one of a film that I’m sure he loved; the type of thing he and David Lynch would sit around talking about how sensual it was in a coffee shop in cinematic hell.  The Netflix.com description of this film says that it’s a biography of 18^th century Armenian poet Sayat Nova.  The film acknowledges in its prologue that it tells his life not through narrative, but through expressions of his work.  I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess it’s probably not my type of poetry.

            Re-cut upon its initial release for being too nationalist in nature (how could they tell?), this is one the soviet film office should have melted down for silver content.  I’m not completely surprised that some theorists and film critics loved this flick, but unless you are fully committed to completion of the 1001 list, or suffering from severe self-loathing, avoid this movie at all costs.  Documentary filmmaker Mikhail Vartanov, a Parajanov apologist, called this film a “revolutionary new” contribution to the language of world cinema.  He was right, just as selecting random words from the dictionary and typing them up onto eight pages could be considered a “revolutionary new” approach to writing a term paper. 

            I am not suggesting here that The Color of Pomegranates isn’t art.  It certainly is that.  And I’m not saying that art should limit itself based on criticism.  That would negate the point.  But cinema, as far as I’m concerned, does have a language that should be observed and built upon by filmmakers.  I see why this picture is included on the list, but I can’t justify it any more than to say it is an exercise in how not to make an entertaining film.

Grade: .5 Hats Off