Kino: The Films of Sergei Paradjanov

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jsteffe
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#126 Post by jsteffe » Sat Jul 12, 2008 4:11 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:
Darth Lavender wrote:As with all Ruscico ports, the NTSCs should ALWAYS be avoided becaused they're ultra-cheap, bootleg-quality conversions of the PAL dvds.
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---------------- lol
Yes, that is a bit of an overstatment, shall we say?

Actually, I've found PAL-NTSC conversion quality to vary considerably from one Ruscico title to another. The Paradjanov discs (including SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS and ASHIK KERIB) look fine. On the other hand, Ruscico's NTSC disc of Alov and Naumov's THE FLIGHT is almost unwatchable due to visible stuttering in the movement, which seems a by-product of its particular conversion method. I've observed that same problem with some of the NTSC versions of the Krunpnyi Plan/Mosfilm titles released for the Russian-speaking market here in the US.

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Tommaso
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#127 Post by Tommaso » Sun Jul 13, 2008 6:05 am

jsteffe wrote:Now here is where things get interesting. It is evident that the old Kino transfer, which they inherited from IFEX, as far as I know, was made from a theatrical print. On the whole it's quite a bit darker than the newer Ruscico-sourced transfer, but it also has a number of scenes that are clearly timed in printing as day-for-night shots. In the Ruscico-sourced transfer, they're significantly brighter.
Yes, very significantly so, and I have my doubts that the new disc is correct in these scenes you point out; I fear that Ruscico did something similar to the brightness/contrast manipulation they did in their "Mirror" transfer, and completely destroying Tarkovsky's intentions by this. It's not that bad with "Surami" here, of course, but I still wonder what drives them to do this.
And although the differences in sharpness between Ruscico-PAL and Kino-NTSC are not huge, I find them very perceptible in your caps; but I agree: in motion the Kino looks very good.

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jsteffe
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#128 Post by jsteffe » Sun Jul 13, 2008 9:01 pm

Tommaso wrote: Yes, very significantly so, and I have my doubts that the new disc is correct in these scenes you point out; I fear that Ruscico did something similar to the brightness/contrast manipulation they did in their "Mirror" transfer, and completely destroying Tarkovsky's intentions by this. It's not that bad with "Surami" here, of course, but I still wonder what drives them to do this.
I also have my doubts about the brightness of those scenes in the Ruscico/Kino transfer. It's not difficult to see how someone doing a video transfer can forget to consult printing instructions or might not have access to them. (Remember what happened with the special edition DVD of Lawrence of Arabia?) Also, there may the question of whether the technician made the telecine using the "one light," "best light" or "scene-to-scene" methods, which can create very different results in the exposure levels across the film.

I'm not sure that the answer is altogether clear-cut in this case, at least if you look at the film itself for cues. In the scene at the end of the film with the king, the initial darkness of the image lends greater impact to the subsequent flood of light and is motivated by the script. On the other hand, in the marriage sequence, Durmishkhan asks why his bride is laughing, but her expression is harder to make out in the darkened version.

I'd like to think that the Soviets originally printed those scenes according to the specifications of Paradjanov or the cinematographer Yuri Klimenko. Knowing all the strange things that could happen to films in the Soviet Union, it's always possible that someone else in the studio added those printing instructions after the fact, but I doubt it in this case. Regardless, I recommend the new DVD to anyone who's interested in Paradjanov's work. It's not his strongest film--I prefer SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS and THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES--but there's no shortage of the lavish and playfully bizarre imagery that gives Paradjanov's work its enduring appeal. And you can see for yourself what a dramatic improvement the new transfer offers on the whole compared to the old version.

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Kirkinson
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#129 Post by Kirkinson » Mon Jul 14, 2008 11:55 pm

And now the Siskel Film Center is showing the same six films that screened at LACMA in February, plus Ukrainian Rhapsody. Unfortunately I'll be working on a film shoot during both screenings of Color of Pomegranates and Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors, which is infinitely frustrating, but at least I'll be able to see the later films. I love them all, and any Paradjanov in 35mm ought to be a joy.

Has anybody seen Ukrainian Rhapsody? I haven't seen any of the pre-Shadows films and this is the only one that fits my schedule.

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jsteffe
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#130 Post by jsteffe » Tue Jul 15, 2008 2:56 am

Kirkinson wrote:And now the Siskel Film Center is showing the same six films that screened at LACMA in February, plus Ukrainian Rhapsody. Unfortunately I'll be working on a film shoot during both screenings of Color of Pomegranates and Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors, which is infinitely frustrating, but at least I'll be able to see the later films. I love them all, and any Paradjanov in 35mm ought to be a joy.

Has anybody seen Ukrainian Rhapsody? I haven't seen any of the pre-Shadows films and this is the only one that fits my schedule.
You absolutely should see UKRAINIAN RHAPSODY. It's a wartime melodrama about a singer, it's crudely made and fairly hokey, but there is still some striking imagery in it, and the German sequences were shot on location in the ruins of Koenigsberg/Kaliningrad. Stepan Shkurat (of Dovzhenko's EARTH) has a cameo role as the singer's grandfather. A lot of people like it the best of his early films. The collective farm musical THE TOP GUY is silly and a lot of fun--it was actually the biggest hit of his entire career, believe it or not! SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS and THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES didn't bring in nearly as many admissions, and hardly anyone at all in the Soviet Union saw THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS.

I think THE FLOWER IN THE STONE is the strongest of his early films in terms of acting and camerwork, but it's unfortunately an anti-religious propaganda film about a Pentecostal-type cult infiltrating a mining community. You really need to see at least one of the early films to appreciate the radical difference between those and SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS.

P.S.-- Kirkinson, please report on the condition of the prints, what kind of soundtracks they have, etc. I'm also curious to hear about the brightness levels in the scenes I've discussed above.

P.P.S.-- I noticed on the program website it says that Paradjanov was sentenced to 11 years of prison. Where do people come up with this stuff? Here's my translation of the relevant section of the court verdict, which the Paradjanov Museum was kind enough to let me copy:
The verified evidence gives the court grounds to arrive at the conclusion that the defendant Parajanov properly qualifies according to Sections I and II, Articles 122 and 211 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR, since he by mutual consent and with the application of force committed sodomy; by means of showing pornographic images he disseminated them. He has been previously tried for sodomy.

[snip]

Declared Guilty:
PARAJANOV Sergei Iosifovich-
according to Sections I and II, Articles 122 and 211 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR and has determined the following punishment for him: according to Section I, Article 122 of the Ukrainian SSR 1 (one) year of deprivation of freedom; according to Section II, Article 122 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR 5 (five) years of deprivation of freedom; according to the Article 211 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR 1 (one) year of deprivation of freedom.
On the basis of Article 42 of the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR, the final punishment, by means of absorption of the less severe punishment by the more severe one, shall be set for him as 5 (five) years deprivation of freedom in a corrective labor colony of strict regime.
The court verdict was also published in French in the Patrick Cazals book, for those of you who read French.

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Kirkinson
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#131 Post by Kirkinson » Sat Jul 26, 2008 3:34 am

jsteffe wrote:P.S.-- Kirkinson, please report on the condition of the prints, what kind of soundtracks they have, etc. I'm also curious to hear about the brightness levels in the scenes I've discussed above.
Absolutely. And thank you for commenting on Ukrainian Rhapsody, I'll make sure to see it. And to my immense delight, due to a reshuffling in our shooting schedule it turns out I will be able to see Pomegranates after all. And The Top Guy is playing the same day, so I'll try to see that as well.

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jsteffe
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#132 Post by jsteffe » Wed Jul 30, 2008 1:46 pm

Kirkinson wrote:And to my immense delight, due to a reshuffling in our shooting schedule it turns out I will be able to see Pomegranates after all. And The Top Guy is playing the same day, so I'll try to see that as well.
Yes, make a point of seeing that one! THE TOP GUY is a silly collective farm musical with a formulaic plot, but it's a lot of fun. It was also the biggest hit of Paradjanov's career, even more than SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS.

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Kirkinson
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#133 Post by Kirkinson » Sun Aug 10, 2008 1:17 am

As wonderful as it's always been in any format, seeing The Color of Pomegranates at the theater is a near-mystical experience. I'm immensely overjoyed at having had the opportunity to see it this way, with one caveat. It's been a while since I watched the film on DVD, but I'll have to go back and look at it as soon as possible because I expect that what I saw today was actually the Yutkevitch cut: the intertitles were all in Russian and there were some quotes I wrote down the first time I saw the film on DVD that I don't think appeared in this version, unless there were some extreme differences in subtitle translation.

[EDIT: After looking back over some of jsteffe's descriptions elsewhere on the forum, I am now 100% certain this was the Yutkevitch cut. My memory of the film on DVD must be poor, because it sounds like it should have been immediately obvious.]

For those who want to know (jsteffe, et al): the film was preceded by Kino's logo and ended with a subtitle credit to Filmexport Studios from 1992. The print was in shambles, to put it kindly. Cracks and pops galore, lots of black specks and splotches racing over the frame, several noticeable audio dropouts. Reel breaks particularly looked and sounded like the end of the world. Colors seemed faded, but I don't know how much of that can be blamed on this specific print as opposed to the general condition of any prints. Compared to the DVDs, based on the screen caps posted here, in terms of color I'd have to say none of them look exactly like what I saw today, but Kino's DVD is probably the closest. It's a bit dark and contrast is too heavy, but on the Japanese DVD every shot seems to have either a reddish or dusty yellow-green tint that was not at all apparent in 35mm. And the French disc just looks dead wrong to me. It's unfortunate that the Kino is so soft and its subtitles are so unbearably ghastly. There really is no acceptable DVD version of this film yet.

I also saw The Top Guy, which was hokey and insane, but I appreciated its cavalier attitude: it's readily apparent while watching it that Paradjanov didn't take it at all seriously and he doesn't seem to expect the audience to do so either. I really enjoyed the virtuosic camera work and it was interesting to see foreshadows of the visual style he developed later. This print was also preceded by Kino's logo and closed by a 1992 subtitle credit to Filmexport. Though the color scheme looked totally warped -- every color was just a different shade of brown -- the print looked far less damaged than Pomegranates and sounded nearly perfect save for one brief instance of muddled audio. My armchair speculation is that the print was probably struck from a source that already had bad color and the reason it was in such better condition than Pomegranates was simply that it had been screened far less in its lifetime.

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jsteffe
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#134 Post by jsteffe » Sun Aug 10, 2008 1:27 pm

Thanks for the report, Kirkinson!

If the print of THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES had Russian titles, it was unquestionably the Yutkevich cut. You're right, Yutkevich added some verse by Sayat-Nova that was not in the Armenian version. That's because the Armenian authorities demanded that Paradjanov remove all the references to Sayat-Nova from the title cards and the title of the film, since they felt it strayed too far from the historical figure of Sayat-Nova. Yutkevich had read Paradjanov's original script (he was a reader for Goskino's Script-Editorial Board), so he added some verse that Paradjanov had also quoted plus some of his own. He also changed the chapter divisions to make them more "logical" and rearranged a couple of scenes. I hasten to point out that he was asked to do this by the Armenian film studio (or Goskino of Armenia?) to resolve the impasse between Armenia and Moscow on the film. Before that, Moscow only allowed them to show the film within Armenia, and it didn't grant distribution in Russia, the other republics or abroad. Yutkevich actually liked the film and wanted it to be more widely seen.

As far as I know, Yutkevich recut the camera negative itself to create the Russian distribution version, and the Armenian release version (the so-called director's cut) only survives through an internegative or interpositive with inferior color and possibly defective sound in the last few reels. (Listen to the pronounced warble on both the Kino and the FSC discs.)

I saw the same Kino print several years ago when it was fresh, and I recall very little fading. The beauty of Paradjanov's vision really came through, and it was deeply moving to watch. Most likely the elements are still in reasonably good condition in Gosfilmofond, so if Kino ever obtains a new print, it should look fine.

I think 1992 was when they struck and subtitled prints of all of Paradjanov's feature films for the touring retrospective. In fact, I think 1992 was also when they showed the Armenian release version in Los Angeles. I brought the print to Las Vegas then--it was being distributed by someone named Nora Armani. Apparently the print was already quite old, but they burned new subtitles on it. The Connoiseur Video VHS edition came not long afterwards, and it's that same transfer that Kino picked up and released on DVD.

Agreed, the print used for the Japanese DVD (again of the Yutkevich version) is faded--too much pink. I still like it best of all the DVDs in terms of color and detail. The Kino disc is badly washed out, but at least it's "honestly" bad. The French FSF disc is "dishonestly" bad, since they boost the color and contrast way too much to compensate for the poor quality of the materials, and they over-process the image so it loses a lot of detail. The "ideal" DVD of THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES has yet to appear.

Although the Armenian release version is in no way a "director's cut"--the censors had already run Paradjanov through the gauntlet--it's still closer to his intentions in some respects than the Yutkevich version, which makes some unwarranted changes to the editing. I think people still need to have the Kino DVD for the time being, despite the shortcomings in the transfer.

Now as for THE TOP GUY, I saw that same print which Kino aquired during the touring retrospective a number of years back. It could be more faded now, but the color was always a little "off," since it was shot on mediocre quality Ukrainian film stock.

I hope you get to see some of Paradjanov's other early films while that retrospective is running.

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#135 Post by ivuernis » Sun Aug 10, 2008 5:11 pm

jsteffe wrote:The Connoiseur Video VHS edition came not long afterwards, and it's that same transfer that Kino picked up and released on DVD.
Are you sure? I have the Connoiseur VHS tape which is the Yutkevich cut and definitely not the same as the Kino DVD edition. In fact it's that very reason why it's one of few VHS tapes I've hung onto. Even on VHS the Yutkevich cut on the Connoiseur is superior to the Kino DVD. Just goes to show how washed out the "director's cut" is.

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#136 Post by MichaelB » Sun Aug 10, 2008 5:17 pm

I'd need to dig it out and check, but I'm pretty sure the Connoisseur VHS is the same version that was broadcast on Channel 4 - which was definitely the Yutkevich cut. It may even have been sourced from the same master.

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jsteffe
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#137 Post by jsteffe » Sun Aug 10, 2008 6:58 pm

Sorry, I was talking about the now-defunct Connoisseur Video in the US that released foreign films in the 1980s and 1990s, including many Janus titles.

You're correct, the other Connoisseur in the UK released superior PAL transfers of THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES and THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS on a single VHS tape. I also have that cassette, and it contains a new print of the Yutkevich version of THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES with good color.

I still think there's no reason why someone couldn't release an excellent-looking new transfer of the Yutkevich cut of THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES. BFI or Masters of Cinema, perhaps? Or perhaps a dual-disc edition with the Yutkevich version for picture quality and Armenian version for textual fidelity. The outtakes still exist (I'm currently writing about them), and they contain a lot of sensationally beautiful imagery--they'd make a great special feature.

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#138 Post by ivuernis » Mon Aug 11, 2008 7:15 am

jsteffe wrote:Sorry, I was talking about the now-defunct Connoisseur Video in the US that released foreign films in the 1980s and 1990s, including many Janus titles.
Ah, I didn't realise there was a different Connoisseur in the US. Was it a sister company of the UK Connoisseur?
jsteffe wrote:You're correct, the other Connoisseur in the UK released superior PAL transfers of THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES and THE LEGEND OF SURAM FORTRESS on a single VHS tape. I also have that cassette, and it contains a new print of the Yutkevich version of THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES with good color.
That's the one I thought you were referring to. A great tape! I have a VHS-to-DVD encoder so I might actually try to get some screen grabs from this to compare to the DVD grabs for anyone who may be curious?
jsteffe wrote:I still think there's no reason why someone couldn't release an excellent-looking new transfer of the Yutkevich cut of THE COLOR OF POMEGRANATES. BFI or Masters of Cinema, perhaps? Or perhaps a dual-disc edition with the Yutkevich version for picture quality and Armenian version for textual fidelity. The outtakes still exist (I'm currently writing about them), and they contain a lot of sensationally beautiful imagery--they'd make a great special feature.
I agree, even though I have the Kino DVD I almost prefer watching the Yutkevich cut instead as the picture is so much better, the colours more vivid. I'd be interested to hear what you have to say on the outtakes. I presume you are referring to the ones screened on a late-night show on Italian TV a few years back?

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jsteffe
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#139 Post by jsteffe » Mon Aug 11, 2008 10:38 am

ivuernis wrote:Ah, I didn't realise there was a different Connoisseur in the US. Was it a sister company of the UK Connoisseur?
As far as I know, they were completely unrelated. Certainly, they had a different catalog of titles.
ivuernis wrote:That's the one I thought you were referring to. A great tape! I have a VHS-to-DVD encoder so I might actually try to get some screen grabs from this to compare to the DVD grabs for anyone who may be curious?
Sure, I'm curious. My copy of the tape is in storage.
ivuernis wrote: I agree, even though I have the Kino DVD I almost prefer watching the Yutkevich cut instead as the picture is so much better, the colours more vivid. I'd be interested to hear what you have to say on the outtakes. I presume you are referring to the ones screened on a late-night show on Italian TV a few years back?
Well, considering the importance of the film's visual texture, I think there's a lot to be said for watching the Yutkevich version or whatever can yield the best visual quality.

Yes, they broadcast about four hours of "rushes" on that Italian TV show a couple years back. I've been organizing that footage according to the slate numbers and approximate script order. It looks as if it doesn't have everything that would have been shot--though I may be wrong. The production ran into a lot of difficulties, so there may be some scenes in the shooting script that were ultimately scrapped.

The original negatives for the outtakes should still survive, since I saw a number of cans for them in Armenia several years back. The Paradjanov Museum also has beautiful color production stills obtain from the film's stills photographer, Andrei Vladimirov. I'm working on that section of the book chapter right now, but I don't mind summarizing some of my impressions once I've sorted everthing out. We should set up a new thread on Paradjanov on the "Old Films" or "Filmmakers" section.

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miless
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#140 Post by miless » Mon Aug 11, 2008 1:04 pm

Connoisseur was the art-house video department of Embassy, a production/home video company that was started by Norman Lear. They often licensed titles from Criterion to release on VHS, and Criterion has released films they distributed or produced (Spinal Tap and Sid & Nancy are two of them that made it to DVD).

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#141 Post by HerrSchreck » Mon Aug 11, 2008 2:08 pm

jsteffe wrote: We should set up a new thread on Paradjanov on the "Old Films" or "Filmmakers" section.
I can set that up.. I'll try & do something in Filmmakers tonite.

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jsteffe
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#142 Post by jsteffe » Mon Aug 11, 2008 3:15 pm

HerrSchreck wrote:I can set that up.. I'll try & do something in Filmmakers tonite.
Thanks, HerrSchreck! That would be terrific.

UPDATE: I noticed that HerrSchreck did indeed set up a thread in the "Filmmakers" section. I'll post some frame graps from the outtakes with commentary tonight.

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Kirkinson
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#143 Post by Kirkinson » Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:19 pm

Saw The Legend of Suram Fortress at the Siskel Center last night. The fact that this is often thought of as "lesser" Paradjanov only illustrates how amazing Shadows and Pomegranates are, because this is still an extraordinary film. I enjoyed it even more than the first time I saw it a couple of years ago, possibly because the culture has become more familiar to me since then (and the current fighting in Georgia has probably intensified my reaction to it).

The print was preceded only by an International Film Exchange logo and a subtitle saying "Sovexportfilm presents," which I believe suggests it dates from the film's first Western release. The print had some dirty splotches, but overall looked like it was in excellent shape. The colors really popped and the soundtrack was pretty extraordinary.

As to the "day-for-night" scenes that jsteffe speculates about on the previous page of this thread, they looked precisely as they do on Kino's new DVD release sourced from Ruscico. If the old Kino DVD and the BFI/Connoisseur VHS were both taken from a theatrical print from IFEX, this clearly complicates the matter, as an IFEX theatrical print is apparently what I just watched.

I'll gladly bow to jsteffe's expertise, but for the moment I would side with this print and the newer transfer, partly because the darker versions of those shots (especially the wedding scene) don't really look "day-for-night" to me, they just look darker. And the shot with the soldiers, though substantially brighter in the new transfer and in the print I saw last night, was still plenty dark enough to make the flood of light that comes after it striking enough to cause some slightly painful eye strain in the theater. Moreover, the shot was already achieved at night (is the rest of that scene on the old Kino transfer as dark as that shot?).

Whatever the case, I can report that based on the screencaps I've seen, the new Kino DVD resembles the IFEX print screened last night very, very precisely. Of course, there's always the considerable possibility that the print itself was timed incorrectly, which is why I'm eager to read jsteffe's response on the matter.

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jsteffe
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#144 Post by jsteffe » Tue Aug 19, 2008 4:09 pm

I'm glad you got to see it on 35mm. IFEX distributed Soviet and Eastern Bloc films from the late Seventies to the early Nineties, so that means this print most likely dates back at least to the early Nineties, as you suggest.

I have not seen the film on 35mm for several years, so I'm really grateful for your observations. Thanks for remembering! That makes me feel better about the way Ruscico has transferred the film, versus the older Kino/IFEX version with the darkened scenes that I mentioned or the BFI version. Since the film's cinematographer Yuri Klimenko is still alive and active, who knows... Ruscico may have even consulted him for the new transfer. I was wondering aloud earlier, becuase it wouldn't be the first time someone forgot to follow color timing instructions for a certain shot while doing a video transfer. Who knows, perhaps the relative darkness of those scenes simply reflects the limitations of video transfer technology of the time? I don't have an answer for this.

BTW: was it a purely Georgian language soundtrack, or did it have the Russian voiceover? The last print I saw had a parallel Russian voiceover translation, which really killed the film for me.

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Kirkinson
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#145 Post by Kirkinson » Tue Aug 19, 2008 4:28 pm

jsteffe wrote:BTW: was it a purely Georgian language soundtrack, or did it have the Russian voiceover? The last print I saw had a parallel Russian voiceover translation, which really killed the film for me.
All Georgian, thankfully.

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