The Lost Paradise

Light plays the leading role in this film. Using over- and under-exposure, powerful spotlights and the ubiquitous sun, Safarian paints a rural community facing change. Safarian uses these techniques to evoke mystical shadows from the past. The film is set in the village of Partisak in Eastern Armenia, which literally means 'little orchard'. Farmers who have been driven out of Western Armenia live in the village. Partisak is also the name of a village situated beyond the biblical Ararat, the area of Eastern Armenia where Noah's Ark ran aground. The director draws several parallels between both villages.The narrative line has been set up loosely. An old man, Mkhitar, holds high the memory of the old Partisak. 'This is only a shadow of the original village', he explains to his Russian daughter-in-law. In The Lost Paradise we follow the man, his daughter-in-law, her son and the farming community in the Armenian countryside. The villagers are pestered by developers and officials who want to clear the village. This leads to a conflict and when someone threatens to cut off the telephone and the electricity, a villager says that he should also try to put out the sun. They will never leave the village, unless it is to go to the other side of Ararat, to the original Partisak. But that is only a dream.