The Legend of Suram Fortress

"If a people has a young man who is capable of being bricked alive in a fortress wall, then this country and this people are unconquerable." - Niko Lorkipanidze (writer) 

After more than a decade, the perestrojka's climate of distention finally allowed Parajanov to direct films again. The bard-poet's choice would fall on the retelling of a legend, already well known in Georgia, and adapted by a number of writers, among which Lorkipanidze, The Legend of Suram Fortress. The choice of this subject points explicitly to Parajanov's self identification as a "bard", a taleteller for the entire caucasus area; with The Colour of Pomegranates, he approached his armenian identity; with the Legend of the Suram Fortress, his interest is rather in the culture of the country where he was born, Georgia. Parajanov's film is in georgian, an important achievement for a filmmaker who made of linguistic emancipation one of his most important cultural battles.

Without censorship, and without creative limitations, The Legend of Suram Fortress is the first film by Sergei Parajanov that was made with relative freedom, and that adopts the kind of aesthetic he introduced with The Colour of Pomegranates. While the 1968 film went into an entirely hermetic-symbolic direction, what happens in Suram is an apparent return to a more linear form of storytelling, intervalled by panel-like sequences of coerographies and gestuals. The lack of depth of field, the "flatness" of Parajanov's compositions from Pomegranates permains in what now is solidified as his visual language. What makes Suram distinctive is the dominance of landscapes of the caucasus, more present than in his previous film, and turned into giant stages of movement and colours.

The story of Suram feels clear, until it is not anymore: soon the storytelling digresses, takes unexpected directions, lingers on a side character's backstory, introduces some new player. It is as if a storyteller's account of an old myth, that continuously derails and detours in an effort to embellish, with the purpose being the pure pleasure of storytelling. It is a different purpose than Pomegranates, which intended to evocate meaning through purely aesthetic forms, but not a form of regression, not a step back. In fact, Suram proves that the aesthetic manierism Parajanov developed can be used as an instrument of storytelling.

Much like the fortune-teller in the film, the eulogy at the opening feels as a prophecy. The film is dedicated to the "memory of all the georgian warriors of all times". It would be soon after the film's release that independentist movements would clash with the centralised government, at the risk of a civil war. The '20s military invasion of Georgia by the Soviet Union was still fresh in memory. And it is hard to not perceive Parajanov's ode to georgian resilience as relevant today, after the multiple conflicts, after this year's uprising protests. 

Although overlooked by the fame of his other works, The Legend of Suram Fortress is a quintessential Parajanov film, perhaps the most enjoyable of his mature phase, and a tale of fundational relevance in georgian identity.

RATING: 4.5/5 

Original title: ამბავი სურამის ციხისა

Directed by: Sergei Parajanov

Length: 88 min.

Year: 1985

Country; Georgia, USSR

Availability: Youtube

Synopsis: inspired by a classic georgian legend. A Georgian warlord wants to build a fortress, but the foundations keep collapsing. The solution is provided by a fortune-teller: his son must perform an act of self-sacrifice and wall himself in the foundations alive.