Understanding is not synonymous with enjoying. The visual language of some movies is so personal and hermetic that interpreting it could be compared to reading a novel written in hieroglyphics. “The Color of Pomegranates,” also known as “Sayat Nova,” made by the Soviet director Sergei Parajanov (1924-1990) is one.

Completed in 1968 but not seen abroad for more than a decade thereafter, the film is newly available in a 4K digital restoration on Blu-ray from Criterion that can also be streamed on FilmStruck. The color is richer and the gradation considerably subtler, and, since the restoration is Parajanov’s original cut, the running time is 10 minutes shorter than the Kino version released in 2001.

“The Color of Pomegranates” is most simply described as a series of tableaus that recount the life of the 18th-century poet and troubadour turned monk who was known as Sayat Nova (a Persian sobriquet that means “King of Songs”). Born, like Parajanov, in Soviet Georgia to Armenian parents, Sayat Nova was enough of a hero to have the 250th anniversary of his birth commemorated in 1962 with a postage stamp.

In “The Color of Pomegranates,” Sayat Nova’s poems are seen rather than heard. There is some voice-over but little dialogue in an ebb-and-flow soundtrack that alternates wailing folk melodies with choral chanting. The film draws on Sayat Nova’s imagery: angels with flat halos and wooden wings, a pasteboard cloud descending as a vision, the constant repetition of key props including books, silver balls and ornate rugs. Fruits seem to bleed and books to weep. Animals, particularly goats and sheep, are ubiquitous. Impassive actors engage in dancelike gestures while staring straight into the camera.