Parajanov's camera is almost motionless, the cuts are abrupt, and each frame is composed like a miniature from an old manuscript. At the very beginning, three pomegranates lie on a white cloth, the juice beneath them spreads into a red stain, and then a knife appears on that stain.
The whole life of the poet Sayat-Nova is told in images like these. A boy stands on a stone roof, with open books laid out on the slopes around him. A monastery is filmed against a black background, there is no sky in the frame, and figures in folk costume stand in a row by its wall.
