Sergei Parajanov's final completed film is based on Mikhail Lermontov's short story about a poor minstrel who must travel for 1,000 days before he is allowed to marry the daughter of the local ruler. Like Parajanov's earlier "Color of Pomegranates", "Ashik Kerib" (which Parajanov dedicated to his friend Andrei Tarkovsky) makes ample use of the visuals and goes long periods without speech. Basically, it tests your attention span; a far cry from Michael Bay's movies.
I wouldn't go so far as to call this movie a masterpiece, but I like that it shows us a culture that we don't often get to see. The culture in this case is Azerbaijan. Parajanov had focused on Armenia with "The Color of Pomegranates", and Ukraine and Georgia with other movies. His refusal to incorporate socialist realism into his works caused friction with the Soviet authorities (as did his bisexuality).
In the end I recommend "Ashik Kerib". I wonder where Parajanov's career would've gone had he lived longer.