The Color of Pomegranates
The hallucinatory films of Armenian painter and poet Sergei Parajanov are joyous, colorful and often musical expressions of visionary experience than revel in parable, myth and allegory. Inspired by the folk traditions of Ukraine and the Caucasus, their delirious beauty belies a personal life marked by persecution and imprisonment under the Soviet regime, including a five-year sentence of hard labor in the gulag for trumped-up charges. Paradjanov pays tribute to the life of 18th-century troubadour Sayat Nova in this indelible film, perhaps his masterpiece. It evokes the poet's childhood and youth, his days as a troubadour at the court of King Heraclius II of Georgia, and his retreat to a monastery. Long suppressed by politburo authorities due to its religious sentiment and bold divergence from “Soviet realism”, The Color of Pomegranates is modern in its abandonment of cinematic conventions while also classical in its attention to archaic aesthetics. "An extraordinarily beautiful film... any one of its linked tableaux is a startling combination of Byzantine flatness, Quattrocento beatifics and Islamic symmetry.”—J. Hoberman, The Village Voice.
Bing Theater | $10 general admission. $7 museum members, seniors (62+), students with valid ID | Tickets: 323 857-6010 or purchase online.