Patrick Cazals, having already written an outstanding book on Sergei Parajanov (Cahiers du Cinéma Editions, Coll. “Auteurs”), has created an abundant and intense documentary collage worthy of the pictorial compositions of the Armenian filmmaker, who, in the dark hours of his life, became a master of salvaging materials (dolls, lace, photographs). Not that Cazals is attempting to achieve the unattainable, but his permeation of the maestro’s universe is so profound that he brilliantly manages to convey its genius and pain in a skilful combination of images, each more indelible than the last.
The simple appearance of Parajanov on screen is a prodigious miracle. There is something diabolical and hypnotic in his eyes, possessing a gargantuan stature as protective as it is frightening, his eloquence is as deft, intelligent and ornate as that of Federico Fellini and Orson Welles, two great figures of his calibre.
We follow the blazing career of a man born into a family of eccentric Armenian antique dealers (“I spent my childhood swallowing the rings and earrings of my mother”), whose talent was so remarkable at his school of cinema, that Ukrainian filmmaker Aleksandr Dovzhenko invited him to Ukraine (where he first directed extremely conventional films). Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965), a sumptuous masterpiece transposing the legendary tale of Romeo and Juliet to the Carpathian Mountains, signalled his breakthrough. It also marked the beginning of a relentless campaign by the Soviet regime, which imprisoned him three times. “I don’t understand my films,” declared the Armenian giant. Even if we fail to understand them, we cannot help but love them for their visionary originality, their glowing modernity and their visual splendour.

Marine Landrot, Serguei Paradjanov le rebelle, “Telerama”, 28th February 2004