This is a Soviet arthouse film from writer-director Sergei Parajanov. Ostensibly about the life of medieval Armenian poet and troubadour Sayat Nova
(which was the film's original title), this is instead a series of tableaux meant to visualize the "mood and feeling" behind the artist's work, as well as the Armenian people and their cultural heritage. It's a series of brief, carefully framed shots, with some movement within the shot but none by the camera, that look like paintings come to vibrantly-colored life. There is no narrative at all, and nothing in the way of a traditional biopic. It's unusual, a continuation of the style Parajanov demonstrated with his earlier Shadows of Forgotten
Ancestors (1964). If you know what you're in store for, then this can be enjoyed as an artistic experience, but anyone put off by non-traditional filmmaking will have very little tolerance for this. Its rather brief 79-minute runtime helps soften the experience, as well.
This film also features several sheep getting butchered, and a half dozen or so chickens beheaded and their flailing bodies cast upon the floor around the main character.
This film also features several sheep getting butchered, and a half dozen or so chickens beheaded and their flailing bodies cast upon the floor around the main character.