This month BFI Southbank are presenting the first-ever full retrospective of Paradjanov's films. 1968 experimental flick The Colour of Pomegranates tells the (completely fabricated) story of an 18th century Armenian poet known as Sayat Nova, king of song. The dream-like imagery of this unlikely biopic-we're talking churches full of sheep, monks sucking pomegranates in synchronicity, Christ-like figures on monastery roofs- is weaved together in a Paradjanov patchwork of life,love and loss. You'll be glad to know, however, that all the surreal arty weird shit that goes on is not an attempt to recreate what happened to Sayat Nova. Rather, it is an attempt to recreate the imaginative and powerful inner life of the poet as he faced the various crises of his life.
Banned by the Soviets, the film first hit international screens during a campaign to release the director from labour camp where he had been jailed by the Russian authorities. However, this wasn't the dissedent's first stint in the Soviet jailhouse. In 1848 he was arrested for homosexual acts with a KGB officer. Film historian Tony Rayns, introducing the controversial director's work at the BFI, tells us that at a New York film festival Paradjanov sat next to Alan Ginsberg while The Colour of Pomegranates was on, pointing to the screen every five minutes saying "I had that one, and that one and that one and that one." On that slightly uncomfortable note, we think you should go and see some of the people he did at the BFI throughout this season.
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