Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965)

Sergei Parajanov’s mystical reimagining of Romeo and Juliet lures you into the heart of a richly cultured landscape, and into the heart of Ivan where we are taken by his passion, grief and inevitable obsession.

His later work, “The Colour of Pomegranates”, I personally thought was too disconnected from humanity and an too intangible for its own good, devolving from his raw philosophical earlier work. Where Martin Scorsese said “The Colour of Pomegranates” was like “walking into a different dimension” I believe “Shadows of our Forgotten Ancestors” deserves that quote. Parajanov gives us visuals with a new gripping realism, yet also a tantalising subjectivity, subjecting the plot to reams of interpretation. I must rewatch this in a few months, and so must you.

Without sounding too hippieish, I felt the camera transcends a human consciousness becoming a force of nature, voyeuristically spying on the characters, reminiscent of a Biblical fable. It swoops through the canopy’s and observes the tribal rituals with a beautiful openness to the truth. This is bolstered by jaw dropping practical effects.

The plot is secondary to the visual poetic which informs it and completes the puzzle with your specific consciousness. My copy of the film was missing subtitles from the middle ten minutes and the story didn’t lose any meaning or power.

Chalked full of stunning cinematic gold, this is a unique filmic experience that I rarely come across, and cinema in its purest form. It’s an essential watch of any film lover.