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Italian-based post modern everything musician Mike Cooper will perform at KickArts on Sunday 3 May at 2.00pm and present a live musical accompaniment for Paradjanov’s lauded film The Colour of Pomegranates using sampled elements from Paradjanov’s soundtrack of Armenian folk tunes and original material to create a new and stunning soundtrack.

Cooper writes, ‘This ravishingly beautiful film was originally refused an export license, and banned by Soviet authorities for religious sympathies and lack of conformity to the strict socialist realism of the former Soviet Union.  Paradjanov was arrested in December of 1973 and sentenced to five years hard-labour camps, charged with rape ad homosexuality.  His extraordinary film traces the life of eighteenth-century Armenian poet Sayat Nova (‘The King of Song’), but with a series of painterly images strung together to form tableaux biographic techniques. Pomegranates bleed their juice into the shape of a map of the old region of Armenia, the poet changes sex at least once n the course of his career, angels descend: the result is a stream of religious, poetic and local iconography which has an arcane and astonishing beauty’.
This is the most perfect example of Paradjanov’s uniquely painterly approach to film-making; with a reliance on visual effects and compositions of objects (as opposed to cinematographic tricks) – vivid and iconographic, the images interweave landscapes, costumes and music to form a metaphorical history of the Armenian nation and a tangible expression of its spirit, free from any Soviet ideological constraints of the time of its making.
Dispensing with formal cinematic narrative, Paradjanov’s recreates the life of Sayat Nova by displaying his inner world.  It's essentially visual poetry; the narrative driven by the scenes of abstract imagery.  There is no dialogue, just voice-over (this and any titles are usually lines from Nova’s poetry) and Paradjanov uses a still camera which never moves.  Paradjanov makes no attempt at realism, but uses Armenian folklore to revive a national culture, which was undermined and suppressed by the authorities.  Paradjanov seems to portray Nova as an androgynous and mystical figure.  Sofia Chiaureli, a Georgian actress who was Paradjanov’s muse, plays Sayat Nova across five stages of his adult life, in contrast to using a boy and man to play Nova as a child and older man.  Paradjanov also obliquely account Nova’s rise from humble carpet weaver to diplomat and King of Songs, and then his fall from favour at court, becoming a monk, but Paradjanov has no interest in recreating Nova’s world in a conventional fashion. The Colour of Pomegranates incorporates so many art forms, it’s a beautiful piece of work that is both mysterious and inspiring.  It is a justly acclaimed film and audiences accustomed to the work of Tarkovsky will love it.
Curated by Lawrence English of Room40 in collaboration with the IMA Brisbane, KickArts and On Edge this is an event not to missed.
All welcome. Entry is free.
Kick Arts is located within the Centre of Contemporary Arts - 96 Abbott Street Cairns.

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