MOVIE REVIEW : SOVIET ‘FORTRESS’ AN ARABIAN NIGHTS TALE

The dazzling “The Legend of Surami Fortress,” directed by Soviet Georgia’s controversial Sergei Paradjanov is the work of a true visionary.

The elliptical film, opening at the Fox International in Venice on Friday, is a celebration of an ancient world where Christianity was still intermixed with Muslim beliefs, which dictated rituals and ceremonies that were often as cruel as the existence to which they gave meaning. Indeed, “The Legend of Surami Fortress,” replete with richness and splendor, can even be taken as a reworking of the Christ story as an Arabian Nights tale.

On yet another level, “The Legend of Surami Fortress” is undeniably a political parable. Two parallel plot lines converge in a stunning finish. First, there’s the story of the fortress itself, which mysteriously crumbles each time it nears completion. Then there’s the story of a handsome, nomadic Georgian courtier, Durmishkan, who abandons his beautiful fiancee, Vardo, to marry another woman, who bears him a son, Zurab.

The two tales come together when the fully grown Zurab asks Vardo, now a famed fortuneteller, how the walls of Surami may be made to stand. It’s important to make all this clear, for otherwise, it could take a second viewing just to sort out the intertwined plotting. The film proceeds as a series of increasingly surreal tableaux, all composed with the formality and graphic impact of icons.

There’s a subplot involving the caravan master Osman-Agha (said to be played by Paradjanov himself; the distributor fails to identify any of the film’s actors), a native Georgian cruelly treated in his youth who assumes a Muslim identity and becomes a rich merchant. Unable to work for 15 years, Paradjanov himself has undergone a kind of resurrection, having been charged in the ‘70s with dealings in illegal currency, homosexuality and something called “incitement to suicide”; all but the charge of homosexuality were dropped, and the film maker had to serve a 4 1/2-year prison term. Beyond what personal meaning the legend surely has for Paradjanov, noted for “Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors” (1964) and “The Color of Pomegranates” (1969), it clearly stands for Georgian independence, freedom and morality, and it involves the sacrifices demanded to preserve them.

“The Legend of Surami Fortress” is as much a bold and intricate visual triumph as Kurosawa’s “Kagemusha” or “Ran.” Alongside such set pieces as a quaint yet eerie pageant of St. George and the Dragon (performed at a feast presided over by Georgia’s czar), there are such passing treats as a glimpse of an ancient rampart hung with a caliph’s treasure of Oriental rugs, or a quick overhead shot of a teeming caravansary, half bazaar, half primitive nightclub. The Arabian Nights fantasy of “Legend” is not that of Universal and Maria Montez but of Edmund Dulac, at once earthy and ethereal. “The Legend of Surami Fortress” (Times-rated Mature for complex style and themes) is a one-of-a-kind film from a one-of-a-kind film maker.

‘THE LEGEND OF SURAMI FORTRESS’ An International Film Exchange/Heritage Entertainment release of a Gruziafilm Studio production. Directors Sergei Paradjanov, Dodo Abashidze. Screenplay Vazha Ghigashvili; based on the novel by Daniel Tchonghadze. Camera Sergei Sixarulidze. Music Djansug Kakhidze. Production designer B. Gelashvili. Film editor K’ora Ts’ereteli. With Levan Uchaneishvili, Zurab Kipshidze, Lela Alibegashvili, Dodo Abashidze, Veriko Andjaparidze, Sofiko Chiaureli. In Georgian, with English subtitles.

Running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes.

Times-rated: Mature.