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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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  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.
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