“Originally refused an export license, Paradjanov’s extraordinary film traces the life of 18th century Armenian poet Sayat Nova (‘The King of Song’), but with a series of painterly images strung together to form tableaux corresponding to moments of his life rather than any conventional biographic techniques. Pomegranates bleed their juice into the shape of a map of the old region of Armenia, the poet changes sex at least once in the course of his career, angels descend: the result is a stream of religious, poetic and local iconography which has an arcane and astonishing beauty. Much of its meaning must remain essentially specific to the culture from which the film springs, and no one could pretend that it’s all readily accessible, but audiences accustomed to the work of Tarkovsky should have little problem.”

So wrote reviewer CPea for Time Out London, of this weeks amazing feature, The Color of Pomegranates. It is clear that our audience members were quite “accustomed to the work of Tarkovsky” (most being Russian – what a shocker!), and had no accessibility issues. Another full house!

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Kristin Stewart. What can I say? Yes, she makes for an easy caricature, with the angsty slouch, hipster sweaters, autonomously expressive eyebrows, and short, choppy dialogue, but let’s face it: she is it and this is her best work to date.

Still stinging from the disappointment of director Olivier Assayas’ much hyped The Clouds of Sils Maria last year (I had an advance copy, the critics loved it, and I was excited to debut new content at MovieNight, but the movie was, well… bad), I was intrigued to see whether he had regained his focus.  I will say this: “Phew! Saved by Stew”… it’s hard not to be glued to a screen inhabited, almost without pause, by Ms. Stewart (clothed or not), but beyond that Personal Shopper is a rather shallow vehicle which perhaps aims to exploit her Twilight appeal… it’s punctuated by rather banal visits from the “other side”. I wanted to be scared, but it just didn’t happen.

MovieNight was packed this week, and even if Personal Shopper didn’t get applause (as most of our features do), it certainly entertained. The real star of the evening, though, was our pre-movie short, YLVIS, in which astronauts from earth travel through the galaxy, encountering alien creatures, and extolling the virtues of the human male genitalia. See it here.

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When I asked Mike Plunkett how he might feel about a MovieNight screening of his documentary feature Salero, he was modestly touched. “After all the great movies you’ve been showing lately, your guests might not be so excited to see it.” Nonetheless, he was really excited, and a wee bit nervous, but guests started arrived slowly, then less slowly,  and soon the room was absolutely packed (get-out-the-folding-chairs packed).

Our audience was mesmerized with the quiet beauty and compassionate observations of Salero, and a sustained round of applause followed the credits. Of course there was a Q&A, and as always, Mr. Plunkett delivered. I’m proud to know him.

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