“Yesterday was better than today. I am weary of tomorrows.”
Effortlessly one of the finest framed, colored, and maybe composited movies of all-time. The lack of clear narrative, and almost pure visual ambiguity had suddenly lifted from me a burden, radicalizing a hypnotic sensation that I’ve rarely experienced with film. In other words, my usual ambition for overly harsh thinking and a careful following of ideas with artistic pieces had seemed to dwindle for 80 gracious minutes, and as pretentious as it sounds (and maybe it is) this movie unlike many made me feel a sort of euphoria and furthermore a bit of distractive spiritual freedom even while existing in an 18th century Armenian culture’s apparent reality of laborious captivity in obligations of fading away and the irradiance despair that‘s secured to it, as well as in the content of Sayat Nova’s contemplative poetic quotes and multi-readable imagery come to life.
Yet, again, despite the troubles and thoughtful wisdom that seemed to be occurring on screen, its often unbothered and minimalistic tone clashing with these events made me feel as if I was rather getting something ambivalent off of my chest from frame to frame with its almost celebratory imagery and musical respects to symbolize these intense, nostalgic subject matters, which could very well be a therapeutic intent of Sergei Parajanov’s with the making of such a personal project that lingers on memory and death, the unavoidable that we’re forced to deal with from generation to generation. And yeah, this really is the original Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters (1985) too. And yeah, the original Roy Andersson.
The complete sound layout in this as well is just *chef’s kiss* perfection.
Verdict: A-
“The Color of Pomegranates” is now available to stream on The Criterion Channel.
Burning the Celluloid 
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