Name: Frescos
Genre: Documentary
Duration: 1 h 36 min
Rating: 6

It has its moments, but is sunk because of the direction and cinematography

A documentary of life in a small Armenian village. Frescos focuses on Garnik, an elderly man who is in charge of the cemetery, and Veruzh, a somewhat recalcitrant youth who becomes Garnik's godson.

I wanted to like this film more, but at the end, I felt I couldn't give it more than a 4 out of 10--the flaws outweigh the assets. Frescos is slow paced to the point of detriment, and when director Alexandre Goutman isn't focusing on Garnik and his close circle of friends/coworkers, the film loses most of its momentum.

The cinematography doesn't help either. Most of it is overexposed and bleached out. Goutman tilted what little color is left towards sepia, with a final effect that approaches the tinted black and white cinematography of the silent film era. I would assume that the cinematography is like this for some artistic reason, rather than incompetence by director of photography Aleksandr Burov, but that reason escapes me.

Also, note that both the IMDb listing and the listing that you're likely to see if you watch Frescos on television promise that Frescos is about "life in Armenia in the wake of an earthquake and the fall of communism". That description is likely to lead to misguided preconceptions. I expected a film about cultural impact directly related to those two events. Instead, they're just incidental facts that have little to do with this film. It would be like watching a documentary about the hip-hop community New York City's Bed-Stuy, and just because it was shot in 2005, the summary said "life in America in the wake of 9-11 and the unusual hurricane season of 2004", even though no one in the film really mentions either event. Although the earthquake is mentioned in passing a couple times in Frescos, Russia and communism are never mentioned, and we have no way of gauging either event's effect on this culture. No one discusses them or any changes of life they have brought about, and we are not shown anything as a basis of comparative ways of life before these events.

Instead, as mentioned in my accounting of the premise, the bulk of Frescos focuses on (I wanted to say "follows", but even that would be misleading) a particular cemetery worker as he goes about his daily business in the cemetery. Some of this material has potential for artistic statement or dramatic impact, but much of it is lackluster. The best moments are those involving verbal interaction between Garnik and his crew during mostly transitional events, including a birthday, a baptism, discussion of life experience and decisions, and even getting a shave, but there aren't enough of these moments to merit a recommendation.

The documentary is a form of non-fiction storytelling that aims to present factual information, insights, and perspectives on real-world subjects, events, issues, or people. Documentaries can cover a wide range of topics, including history, science, culture, social issues, nature, biographies, and more.

Dziga Vertov in Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

A lyrical portrait of life in a contemporary Armenian village following the devastation of an earthquake and the fall of communism.

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Frescos

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