One of the greatest masterpieces of the 20th century, Sergei Parajanov's "Nran Guyne" is a biography of the Armenian poet and troubadour Aratiun Sajadian (1712-1795), known as Sayat Nova (the "King of Song"). The film reveals his life more through his poetry than a conventional narration of important events in his life. We see the poet grow up, fall in love, enter a monastery and die. But his rise from carpet weaver to archbishop and martyr is depicted in the context of images from Parajanov's imagination and Sayat Nova's poems, poems that are seen and rarely heard. Sofiko Chiaureli plays 6 roles, both male and female, and Sergei Parajanov wrote, directed, edited, choreographed, worked on costumes, design and decor, and virtually every aspect of this revolutionary work with no dialogue or camera movement. The film relies very little on a storyline, plot, drama, or acting.
Quotes from the film (mostly from Sayat Nova's poetry):
* "I am the man whose life and soul are torture."
* "From the colors and aromas of this world, my childhood made a poet's lyre and offered it to me."
* "We were searching for ourselves in each other."
Parajanov said his inspiration was "the Armenian illuminated miniatures. I wanted to create that inner dynamic that comes from inside the picture, the forms and the dramaturgy of color." He also said, "It wasn't the established canons of the fate of the poet-conflict with the tsar, conflict at court, the banishing of the poet from the palace, worldly life, the monastery--these were not the point of my scenario, but the colors, the accessories, the details of daily life that accompanied the poetry, the art in life...The world that accompanied the poet." Once he made a speech in Minsk in which he asserted that the Armenian public very likely did not understand "Sayat Nova", but then said that people "are going to this picture as to a holiday."
This is an absolutely extraordinary film, especially considering the conditions under which Paradjanov made it. Regarded as a masterpiece by Federico Fellini, Jean-Luc Godard, and Michelangelo Antonioni, it is a feast of color, human beauty, abstract design, and music. It was censored, refused an export license, and banned in the former USSR but made the Top 10 list in Cahiers du Cinéma in 1982 and Top 100 in Time Out. Is this a gay film? "Nran Guyne" pushed Soviet authorities to imprison Sergei Paradjanov for homosexuality. In 1974 he was convicted and sentenced to 6 years in a hard labor prison camp in the Ukraine. He admitted in court that he was "partially homosexual" and his crime was "homosexuality and illegal trafficking in religious icons". The VHS version of this film has much better video quality. The DVD seems to be from an old print that was left in the sun for the last 25 years. Tigran Mansuryan composed the music, and Sofiko Chiaureli provides the narration. The language is Armenian, and versions with English subtitles can be found with difficulty. The Armenian title is "Nran Guyne" (originally "Sayat Nova"), and the English title is "The Colour of Pomegranates" while the American title is "Red Pomegranates".
