The Cinematheque

“Sur-realist in the literal sense of the term … I wish that Kalatozov’s early masterpiece were better known.”

Jay Leyda, Kino

Little known outside the former Soviet Union, this startling ethnographic treasure in the manner of Buñuel’s Las Hurdes (aka Land Without Bread) was directed by Georgia-born Mikhail Kalatozov, whose long career includes the Palme d’Or-winning The Cranes Are Flying (1957) and the remarkable I Am Cuba (1964). The film depicts, with visual bravado and lyrical intensity, harsh living conditions and medieval traditions in a mountain community in the Caucasus cut off from civilization. Many of the film’s images—pagan-like animal sacrifices; a mother squeezing breast milk onto the grave of her child—retain their power to shock.