The New Observer Arts Reviews Palms – a film by Artur Aristakisyan

Palms – a film by Artur Aristakisyan

This film was released in 1993. I’ve only just discovered it.

The DVD I bought was in Russian with English sub-titles. It included an interview with the director, Artur Aristakisyan.

In the interview Artur Aristakisyan says that films of this kind are received with either rapture or hostility. In this case he says, mostly hostility. I am rapturous about this film. It is probably the first DVD film I have ever watched when, after watching it, I felt the weight of the disk. This film has weight.

The film was shot amongst a group of social outcasts in Moldova just after the fall of the Soviet Union. Though the film is not a film about ‘human