still Arabesques on the Theme of Pirosmani (Sergej Paradzjanov, SU 1985)

Parajanov Triptych

Eye on Art: Parajanov Triptych

Parajanov Triptych is a programme of three remarkable but seldom screened shorts by Sergei Parajanov, made in Ukraine, Armenia and Georgia.

Born a hundred years ago, Sergei Parajanov used to describe himself as an Armenian born in Georgia, who was educated in Russia and imprisoned for Ukrainian nationalism. It is a statement that betrays Parajanov’s sense of irony, but also intimates his unique contribution to not just the legacy of Soviet cinema, but the individual identities of multiple post-Soviet republics, not least Georgia, Armenia and Ukraine. Parajanov’s influence extends beyond cinema, inspiring artists from fashion designers like Yves Saint Laurent to contemporary queer divas, including Lady Gaga.

Programme

Kyiv Frescoes (1966)
Parajanov’s fame hinges on a tableaux aesthetic best exemplified by his film based on the life and work of the Armenian national poet Sayat Nova, The Color of Pomegranates (1969). However, this poetic first appears in Kyiv Frescoes, a remarkable short from 1966. Ostensibly a bricolage of film tests, assembled by the Ukrainian cinematographer Aleksandr Antipenko as his diploma film for VGIK, Kyiv Frescoes is the shadow of film that was cancelled before it went into production. Nevertheless, many of the hallmarks that made Parajanov famous – embracing artificiality, a preoccupation with framing, colour games – appear here in an embryonic form.
Hakob Hovnatanyan (1967)
Hakob Hovnatanyan was commissioned as a short documentary featuring work of the so-called Raphael of Tiflis, the nineteenth-century Armenian portrait painter who gives the film its name. It also doubled as the diploma work for the sound engineer, Yuri Sayadian. In this work, made during the pre-production period of The Color of Pomegranates, Parajanov experimented with sound, specifically musique concrète, ideas that he and Sayadian would subsequently develop with the Armenian composer Tigran Mansurian.
Arabesques on the Theme of Pirosmani (1985)
In some ways, Arabesques on the Theme of Pirosmani acts as a companion piece to Hakob Hovnatanyan, this time focusing on the work of the celebrated Georgian naif painter, Niko Pirosmani. It was made during the period of Perestroika and Glasnost and hinted at new artistic avenues for Parajanov to explore in this period of relative freedom. Like Hakob Hovnatanyan, it is infused with nostalgia, situating painting as a medium being supplanted by photography. With these three films, Parajanov stakes a space between the two.
Introduction
Daniel Bird directed The Hamo Bek-Nazarov Project, a film preservation and restoration programme focussed on the South Caucasus, Central Asia and Ukraine. He produced Parajanov Triptych, a programme of restored short films that have been acquired by Centre Pompidou and MoMA.As both a film historian and programmer, he felt the narratives of Soviet cinema had been disproportionately skewered towards Russian films and filmmakers. He has worked with the World Cinema Project, part of the Film Foundation, on restorations of Parajanov's The Color of Pomegranates, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and most recently Ardak Amirkulov's The Fall of Otrar.