In his first movie after 15 years of censorship, imprisonment and detentions Parajanov picks up where he left off in his unique style, concentrating on visual compositions and (I think to a lesser extent in this one) music, rather than dialogue, and as usual you are far too stunned by the beauty and meaningfulness of his visual artistry to care that the story is sparse and hard to follow.

Kind of the middle ground between the sheer captivating brilliance of Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors and the inscrutable symbolism of Color of Pomegranates. Sometimes the cultural rituals and dances are fascinating, and other times I just wanted the film to move on a bit.

Though drenched in dreadful beauty and enthralling music, the characters are never their own and the presentation of story is almost incomprehensible; making me wonder how much of it was even important or necessary. I mean, the obvious passion Parajanov has for folklore is admirable, and the religious parallels were interesting, but the film as a whole was just too stagy and poorly edited to flow. There were a couple of fantastic scenes of course, but any impact has worn off an hour later.

The film is dream like with an enjoyable sense of humour (in one shot Parajanov intentionally leaves quite obvious oil liners behind the main focus of our attention out on the sea, and in another a body that is carried off to be buried wriggles rather a lot to hilarious effect). The acting style here is wonderfully theatrical and just part of the film's enjoyable indulgence in Georgian culture and art. And what images! Delightful.

I would like to see more of Parajanov's films from the 50's and 60's, before his time in the gulag. Those seem to be better than his work from the 80's. This one is a lot like Ashik Kerib: the compositions are unmistakably Parajanov (few directors have such an immediately recognizeable style) and an interesting story underpinning it, but it's buried by so many oblique symbols, cultural references and seemingly irrelevant asides that it's very difficult to watch.