Sayat Nova

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Paul Chaderjian March 18, 2003

 

Sayat Nova
           
            Sergei Paradjanov's "Sayat Nova" is more than a motion picture bringing to life images from historical Armenian culture, it is a code that holds the key to unraveling the ancient reality of a people.
                        Philosopher and writer Carl Jung believed that symbols were how the universe or god communicated to man. Jung wrote that the symbols were communicated to man's consciousness through dreams. Within that context, Paradjanov captured symbols of a people on film, so that he would eternally communicate that which represented Armenians to generations to come.
            While the conscious mind of the viewer may attach different meanings to each of the symbols captured by Paradjanov, the universal language that the waking mind uses and the language that people agree upon dictate that the story Paradjanov is telling is a coming of age story. The character coming of age in "Sayat Nova" is the man whom the film is titled for – the minstrel with a talent for language and fame that reached into the far corners of the Armenian plateau.
            Through Sayat Nova's coming of age, Paradjanov is hoping to pass to the viewer the values encrypted in Armenian culture, including the culture's love for knowledge, for books, the arts and for wisdom. Sayat Nova is not only a collection of shots that tell how villagers made wine, made carpets and lived their daily lives, but it is also a celebration of that which made the Armenian culture thrive – hard work and love of their unique cultural heritage.
            Paradjanov's genius made him realize that he would not be able to communicate the importance of a culture through a narrative that the conscious mind would undersand. This is why Paradjanov relies on a non-narrative dialogue with the subconscious mind -- a mind that can understand the potency of symbols, and therefore the soul of a culture. It is also the subconscious mind, the one connected to the universe and god, that can hold on to these symbols longer than it can to stories of characters and the lessons narrative cinema would preach to the waking mind.
             
           

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