Cinema
Առաջին սիրո երգը
Yuri Yerznkyan · 1958
Synopsis
In an old courtyard in Yerevan that forms a world of its own, Arsen Varounts, a young singer famous too soon, cannot bear the weight of his fame. Vain, he lets himself be led astray by new friends, neglects his wife and son and lashes out at them; his family falls apart and his voice is lost. A young architect, who loves his wife, is the only one to hold out a hand to him.
Context
The film, written by Jirayr Hakobyan and Yakov Voltchek under the working title “The New House”, was the first directing work of its two directors, Yuri Yerznkyan and Laert Vagharshyan, and Khoren Abrahamyan's first film role; the singing voice is Sergey Davidian's, and the great actor Vagharsh Vagharshyan, father of the co-director, plays a part in it. Arno Babadjanian and Lazar Sarian wrote the music, and Babadjanian's songs were his first to become popular.
Who it is for
About an hour and forty minutes, in Armenian, subtitled. A sung melodrama of the fifties, whose songs are better known than its story.
Prizes and reception
Top of Soviet attendance in 1958, with nearly twenty-five million viewers, and the first postwar Soviet film in which jazz is heard.