The Seasons
1975 · 29m · Armenia
Directed by Artavazd Peleshian
Genres: documentary, experimental
Tones: contemplative, tense, theatrical
A lyrical documentary depicting the struggles of an isolated Armenian farming community against the elements, set to Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Armenian folk music, capturing shepherds, haystacks rolling down hillsides, weddings, and villagers sliding down snowy slopes carrying sheep.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Peleshian's distance montage turning sheep-wrestling into Vivaldi — the kind of wordless rapture that makes Koyaanisqatsi look like a screensaver. Twenty-nine minutes that justify the entire documentary form.
Peleshian's distance montage transforms pastoral ethnography into something closer to liturgy; the Vivaldi-scored sheep cascades feel both ancient and entirely modern. A cornerstone of Soviet documentary poetics.
Peleshian's distance-montage rhythm of haystacks tumbling and shepherds sliding with sheep down snow runs on Vivaldi and pure visual cadence - no narration, just edit. The Vimeo runtime confirms the full 27:58, which is exactly the duration this hypnotic loop needs.
Reviews
Not a frame too short, not a frame too long.
A vivid calendar of land and animal husbandry.
Festivals
- Berlin International Film Festival 1990
- Venice International Film Festival 2011
- International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam 2012
- CPH:DOX 2003