Okay, I like surrealism. And I respect people who give everything up in order to express themselves in non-linear socially-unacceptable ways. The writer/director of this film, Sergei Parajanov, a Georgian-born Armenian (Georgia in Russia not in the U.S.) created a film language so far from the KGB-accepted "Social Realisim" school that he was imprisoned after making this film for 5 years and kept from making films for 15. He was finally allowed to make movies again in the '80's but died after only completing two, his harsh term in Russian prison camps ruining his health. SAYAT NOVA is the story of a an Armenian troubador's life and definately isn't the typical biopic we get from Hollywood. Instead it's the life story of a poet told by poetic images. Poetic Armenian images, images full of the iconography of a civilization at a cultural crossroads for centuries. It's astounding. Parajanov, in an interview, said he had no money, no effects, no budget, and was under serious suspicion from the Russian authorities because of his last film. Therefore the entire movie is shot as a series of moving pictures with a hyper realistic look, because everthing really exists. He found what he could and he put it in the film. Beautifully arranged shots and mystical symbology makes the film feel like and hour and a half of still lifes telling you a story. I'm still not sure what the story is but, like all poetry, I don't think that's the point. The point is simply to exist and communicate beauty.
SAYAT NOVA does that perfectly.
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