Seasons of the Year

Seasons of the Year
Title card
ArmenianՏարվա եղանակները
Directed byArtavazd Peleshyan
Written byArtavazd Peleshyan
CinematographyMikhail Vartanov
Edited byAïda Galstyan[1]
Music byTigran Mansurian
Production
company
Release date
  • 1975 (1975)
Running time
29 minutes
CountrySoviet Union
LanguagesArmenian (minimal dialogue)
Russian intertitles

Seasons of the Year (Armenian: Տարվա եղանակները, romanized: Tarva yeghanaknery; Russian: Времена года, romanized: Vremena goda),[2] also called The Seasons or Four Seasons,[3] is a 1975 Soviet–Armenian short documentary film, directed and written by Artavazd Peleshyan.[4][5] It was his second and last collaboration with cinematographer Mikhail Vartanov, after Autumn Pastoral (1971).[6]

Production

Seasons of the Year was filmed by Mikhail Vartanov in black-and-white on 35 mm film in the Armenian SSR.[7] It was Peleshyan's first film not using archive footage.[8]

Synopsis

The film depicts the struggles of an isolated Armenian farming community against the elements.[9] Armenian folk music is mixed with Vivaldi's Four Seasons. We see the villagers raising sheep and cattle, rolling haystacks down a hillside, dealing with rain and storms, celebrating a wedding, and sliding down a snowy hill while carrying sheep.

Release

Seasons of the Year was released in 1975. Decades later it became critically admired in the West, showing at the 40th Berlin International Film Festival (1990), CPH:DOX (2003), the 68th Venice International Film Festival (2011) and the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (2012 and 2021).[9] The scene of farmers sliding down the snowy hills with sheep and rolling haystacks down a steep hill have become famous.[10]

Legacy

Andrei Ujică listed it among his favourite films, calling it "not a frame too short, not a frame too long."[11] Verena Paravel also described seeing it on her first day of film school, calling it "the beginning of a cognitive and creative revolution for me."[12] Ian Christie has written that Seasons of the Year is a "a vivid calendar of land and animal husbandry," comparing it to Salt for Svanetia (1930).[13]

It was listed at #47 on Sight & Sound's list of the Critics’ 50 Greatest Documentaries of All Time, and finished #14 on the Filmmakers' list.[14][15]

References

  1. ^ www.oberon.nl, Oberon Amsterdam. "Seasons of the Year (1975) - Artavazd Pelechian | IDFA" – via www.idfa.nl.
  2. ^ "Vremena goda | Sabzian". www.sabzian.be.
  3. ^ Peleshi͡an, Artavazd; Matt, Gerald; Stiftung, Ursula Blickle; Wien, Kunsthalle (October 14, 2004). Our Century. Kerber. ISBN 9783936646603 – via Google Books.
  4. ^ Lawton, Anna (November 26, 1992). Kinoglasnost: Soviet Cinema in Our Time. CUP Archive. ISBN 9780521388146 – via Google Books.
  5. ^ www.oberon.nl, Oberon Amsterdam. "The Afterimages of Artavazd Pelechian | IDFA". www.idfa.nl.
  6. ^ "Seasons". February 9, 2017.
  7. ^ Fairfax, Daniel (29 December 2001). "Pelechian, Artavazd – Senses of Cinema".
  8. ^ "Film Series. Artavazd Peleshyan films: THE SEASONS OF THE YEAR (1975), WE (1969), OUR CENTURY (1983) | U-M LSA Center for Armenian Studies (CAS)". ii.umich.edu.
  9. ^ a b "Seasons of the Year" – via mubi.com.
  10. ^ MacDonald, Scott (October 14, 1998). A Critical Cinema 3: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520209435 – via Google Books.
  11. ^ Martins, José Manuel; Reeh, Christine (March 7, 2017). Thinking Reality and Time through Film. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781443879583 – via Google Books.
  12. ^ MacDonald, Scott (July 1, 2019). The Sublimity of Document: Cinema as Diorama. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-005215-7 – via Google Books.
  13. ^ Graffy, Julian; Hosking, Geoffrey (August 1, 1989). Culture and the Media in the USSR Today. Springer. ISBN 9781349201068 – via Google Books.
  14. ^ "The Greatest Documentaries of All Time | Sight & Sound". British Film Institute. 25 April 2019.
  15. ^ "Filmmakers' Greatest Documentaries of All Time | Sight & Sound". British Film Institute. 25 April 2019.