It's one of the most unusual films I've seen, a barrage of images, music and noises, shot with such an active camera we almost need seatbelts.

Here is visual poetry, so much rarer in the cinema than mere lyricism. An aesthetic pleasure from beginning to end, the film like its title conjures a feeling of legend and fairytale out of the simplest, documentary-real ingredients.

[Parajanov] Is particularly sensitive to the universal symbolism of nature. He uses leaves and aky and earth and water to create a mood, or to convey an emotion, with breath-taking clarity.

The soundtrack blends folksongs, chants and atonal music which is exotic and exciting, supporting the unique camera devices. Together they seem to impart a combination of the haunting past with the immediacy of eternal things.