Wednesday | December 1, 1999 8:30 pm

Andriesh

Screening on Film

Directed by Sergei Parajanov and Yakov Bazelian .
With Kostja Russu, Nikolai Schaschik.
USSR, 1954, 35mm, color, 63 min.
Ukranian with English subtitles.

A major foreshadowing of Parajanov’s later work, the visually prodigious Andriesh is an entertaining tale about a young shepherd who is given a magic shawm (a flutelike instrument) to help him conquer his foes. With its flying sheep, evil wizards, and storm demons—all captured in the gloriously artifical palette of fifties Soviet color stock—Andriesh has the kind of eye-popping, whirlwind weirdness of Pardjanov’s last films, Suram Fortress and Ashik Kerib.