The Color of Pomegranates

The Color of Pomegranates is a Soviet-era film about the 18th-century Armenian poet and musician Sayat-Nova. Rather than telling his life in a straightforward way, it presents a series of tableaux drawn from his poetry, tracing his childhood, his loves, his time in a monastery and his encounters with worldly and religious authority. The film follows his inner world more than outward events, using symbolic images, intertitles and voice-over instead of conventional dialogue and plot.

Sergei Parajanov directed and co-wrote the screenplay, which draws on Sayat-Nova's own verse. The film was made in the Soviet Union by Armenia Studio and runs eighty minutes. It was Parajanov's second feature as director, following Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors in 1965. Sofiko Chiaureli plays several roles, among them the poet as a young man, his love and a nun in white lace. Melkon Alekyan, Vilen Galstyan, Gogi Gegechkori, Sandro Tediashvili and Hovhannes Minasyan also appear.

On TMDB the film holds a rating of 7.4 out of 10 from 358 votes, a strong score for a work of this kind. Its place in Parajanov's filmography, between Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and his later projects, marks it as a departure toward the highly visual, non-linear style with which his name is associated.