However, some degree of education subsequently achieved, Legend of Suram Fortress remains a very strange film from a very strange director, like an esoteric magical tome written in a language only known in the land of faerie and to Alejandro Jodorowsky. In fact, so surreal was the cinematic style of Sergei Paradjanov that it was considered an affront to the Soviet Union, an artistic divergence so severe that it landed the director in a gulag for crimes committed against social realism. But if one is to stumble semi-blind through the rich and esoteric cultural heritage of the Soviet Union’s Central Asian spheres of influence, one will be confused but enlightened by having Paradjanov as a guide. He was a man trained in the established art schools and production studios of Moscow and Kiev but possessed of a fierce interest in exploring the pre-Soviet indigenous cultures of places like Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan in a way that had little respect for traditional, logical narrative.
Keith Allison is the chief Bacchanologist at Teleport City.