This metaphor for a rich regional culture threatened by an oppressive larger one was surely not lost on Paradjanov's detractors, but the film, with its gorgeous Georgian landscapes and fantastic imagery, happily, has outlived its enemies.

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Paradjanov's final film, Ashik Kerib (1988), was dedicated to his late friend and compadre Andrei Tarkovsky, who also suffered tremendously at the hands of reactionary Russian authorities. Based on a story by Mikhail Lermontov and shot in the Georgia/Azerbaijan area that was Paradjanov's inspiration, the film is a typical phantasmagoria of folkloric imagery whose power is heightened by a rich score of regional music.

Ashik is an impoverished minstrel (played by Yuri Mgoyan, a handsome petty criminal hired by Paradjanov). He must find "bride-money" to marry the daughter of a rich Turkish merchant.

This simple plot gives Paradjanov plenty of room to play as Ashik encounters a series of tests in the classic heroic mold, and play he does in such unforgettable scenes as a "wedding of the blind, deaf and dumb" at which Ashik's music entrances the participants.

Ashik's search is an immersion into the transcendent beauty and power of folk culture, which Paradjanov fleshes out with vivid colors, elaborate costumes and headgear, and riotous blends of music, dance, and movement. Even the simplest images show the director's constant theme of the triumph of nature over the temporal, as when falling rose petals replace the dowry of diamonds that Ashik cannot afford.

Some critics have seen Ashik Kerib as a parable for Paradjanov's oppression by the government, with the director himself represented by the hapless lute player wandering through a blasted landscape of lost souls. But this interpretation misses the celebratory, indeed transcendent quality of image and sound that are the film's driving force. If Paradjanov was not reconciled to the political abuse he suffered, it is impossible to tell from his final film.

After Paradjanov's death on July 21, 1990, his home in Yerevan was converted into a museum containing some of his writings (Leonid Alekseychuk says he wrote 23 scripts and 50 volumes of diaries) and several hundred of his artworks, including some he made during his imprisonment.

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