Parajanov - Arabeskebi Pirosmanis Temaze

(Click here for the Romanian version)

This Janitor opens the Arabesques on the Pirosmani Theme. No wonder. Parajanov made this short movie after spending a good part of the 1970's in the detention camps - it sounds now absurd, but the Soviet regime was not willing to tolerate his masterpieces, Tini Zabutykh Predkiv (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors), and Sayat Nova (even the name of the Armenian troubadour of the XVIII-th century was for them unbearable, so the title was changed to Color of Pomegranates).
So Parajanov knew too well all the facets of the oppression, and this Janitor painted by Pirosmani is a terrific portrait, there is a forceful lesson in it, because this stupid brute is also very human - what we realize with horror is that any of us can become such a janitor, it is enough to get some authority.

And Parajanov's movie stays a lot on the face of the janitor, then slowly comes down to his feet, then again on the face.

Then follows this camel with its master, an image chosen by Parajanov just to allow us to come back from the Hell. However, there is here a story, between the Tatar and the camel. Pirosmani does not tell us the story, it's left for us to imagine it. What Pirosmani does here is to render a subtle tension which forces us to assume our responsibility of deciding on the story.


With this physician riding a donkey we are for sure far away from the Hell of the Janitor. Through Pirosmani themes, Parajanov draws the Arabesques on our human nature - there is the evil in us, there are the untold stories, but it is much more, we can be nice, sometimes a bit ridiculous, not necessarily the bad guys.




This little girl with a patterned balloon accompanies in the movie the little boy riding a donkey - the two paintings are juxtaposed, so the balloon looks like it is shared by them.

Horror, subtlety, kind irony, delicacy - here is the whole universe of Pirosmani.




And Parajanov would make in his last years other two masterpieces, Ambavi Suramis Tsikhitsa (The Legend of the Suram Fortress), and Ashik Kerib.

(Parajanov)

(Pirosmani)