Films
from Along the Silk Road
Wednesday, September 17 ~ Sunday, September 21
Between the Middle East and the Western Chinese border lies
the vast stretch of continent where Genghis Khan ruled and the
great trade route called the Silk Road ran. The five former
Soviet Asian republics along this route, Turkmenistan, Tadjikistan,
Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, possess a culture of
which most Westerners have no grasp. For the better part of
the twentieth century, these five ancient and almost mythical
Iron Curtain countries intermittently produced their own national
cinemas, but when the Soviet Union collapsed, so did the apparatus
for the promotion and distribution of these films. In the early
Nineties, however, these remarkable works began to capture the
attention of audiences on the international film festival circuit.
The films from along
the Silk Road are hand-crafted and strongly local. Somewhat
Russian, somewhat Middle Eastern, somewhat Asian, they are a
strange crossroads between the Communist past and the free-market
present, between a faith-driven Muslim society and a secular
one; they define their cultural identity without boastful nationalism.
They call upon ancient traditions to confront the world of new
capitalism and are rich in artistic and poetic miracles. Central
Asian cinema is a treasure that at long last has become accessible
to us. Film critic Kent Jones best expressed our imperative.
"Why bother with yet another slew of films from yet another
corner of the world? Why indeed. Because we're told we don't
have to, since we make the best movies here. Secondly, these
movies speak from the corner of the world we now dread most,
which is why it behooves us to watch them. Thirdly, I'm here
to report that there are things in these movies that take my
breath away, and that remind me why I fell in love with the
cinema in the first place."
Wednesday,
September 17 at 8:00 PM
My Brother
Silk Road
dir. Marat Sarulu, Kazakhstan / Kyrgyzstan, 2001, 80 mins,
b/w, Kyrgyze w/ English subtitles
Marat Sarulu, co-writer
of Aktan Abdikalikov’s The Adopted Son, made
his feature debut with this beautifully shot (in glorious black-and-white)
and carefully drawn parable of the transition from old to new
in the mountains of Kyrgyzstan. Two young boys and a girl from
a mountain village make their way to the rail line that crosses
the old Silk Road. By boarding the slowly moving train, they’re
looking for a sense of definition, a way into their own future
and a future for their country, as well as a link to the past.
A film with a very special tone, pitched between bittersweet
nostalgia and longing.
preceded by
The Fly-Up
dir. Marat Sarulu, Kazakhstan / Kyrgyzstan, 2002, 10 mins,
color, Kyrgyze w/ English subtitles
Sarulu’s elegant 2002 short is based on a strong, simple
idea—a man living in a dull black-and-white world soars
to color and the freedom of the skies in a homemade flying machine.
Thursday,
September 18 at 8:00 PM
The Daughter-in-Law
dir. Khodjakuli Narliev, Turkmenistan, 1972, 81 mins, color,
dubbed into Russian w/ English subtitles
 Khodjakuli
Narliev’s plaintive cinematic poem is as delicate as a
desert breeze. A woman whose husband has been killed in WWII
lives with her father-in-law in the desert. "You’ve
been irreproachable all these years," he tells her—at
once a compliment and a sad realization. She cannot leave and
go back to her family,
because that would
mean the end of hope that her husband, a heroic pilot, might
return one day. The film, composed in rich color, is a series
of encounters and memories—the birth of a child, a visit
from her brother, a plane ride with her husband just before
he went off to war—that revolve around the memory of what
was and the bittersweet image of what might have been.
Friday,
September 19 at 8:00 PM
Without Fear
dir. Ali Khamraev, Uzbekistan, 1972, 96 mins, b/w, dubbed
into Russian w/ English subtitles
 A
Uzbek Red Army officer in the 1920s is in charge of his local
village. His task is modernization, and one of the first big
steps is to allow women to drop their veils and enlighten themselves.
A brave teenage girl offers to set the example, setting off
a series of tragic encounters from which no one, from the soldier’s
young bride to his militant father-in-law to the intransigent
mullahs, emerges unscathed. Shot in crisp black-and-white and
written by the estimable Andrei Konchalovsky, Without Fear
is at once philosophically lucid, melodramatically engaging,
and altogether electrifying. Director Ali Khamraev is a master,
whose political acumen and cinematic intelligence are in perfect
balance. This timely film has a Brechtian edge: each sharply
rendered detail cuts like a knife.
Saturday, September 20
at 8:00 PM
Man Follows
Birds
dir. Ali Khamraev, Uzbekistan, 1975, 87 mins, color, dubbed
into Russian w/ English subtitles
 A
young boy gets a brutal sentimental education under the open
skies of medieval Uzbekistan. Ali Khamraev’s stylistic
tour de force is almost unclassifiable—a mystic vision,
an eastern western, a pageant of color and movement, a portrait
of adolescence painted in broad, expressionistic strokes. Man
Follows Birds moves from one sumptuous moment to the next—
rides through ecstatically colored landscapes, a trio of friends
waking up covered in apple blossoms, the hero imagining his
beautiful long-dead mother in images that have an abstract power
and beauty. A movie that truly deserves the word "visionary."
Tickets are $6.00
for general admission, $5.00 for I House members, students and
seniors. Available in advance at your local TLA
Video, on line at www.tlavideo.com/ihouse
or one hour before showtime at the International House box office.
Sunday,
September 21 at 7:00 PM
Special
Free Event
 Introduced
by His Excellency Kanat B. Saudabayev, Ambassador of the Republic
of Kazakhstan to the United States and
mentor to director Darezhan Omirbaev
Having previously served as the Minister
of Culture and the Minister of Foreign Affairs for the Republic
of Kazakhstan, Ambassador Saudabayev will speak about the art
of filmmaking in his country as well as his experiences working
with director Darazhan Omirbaev. The director got his start
in film under the tutelage of Ambassador Saudabayev, who urged
Omirbaev to travel abroad with his work, to get involved in
the international film circuit. The Ambassador is credited with
instituting the “Kazakh new wave” of film directors
in his country while serving as Chairman of the State Film Committee
from 1983 - 1988. Some other titles that the Ambassador has
held include Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Head of the
Prime Minister’s Chancellery of Kazakhstan.
Kairat
dir. Darezhan Omirbaev, Kazakhstan, 1991, 72 mins, color,
Kazakh w/ English subtitles
 "This
34-year-old filmmaker has invented an entire universe,"
wrote Jean-Michel Frodon in Le Monde, and he was right.
Darezhan Omirbaev may have been inspired by Bresson and Hitchcock,
but he has created his very own universe in the five films he’s
made since the late 80s. The disconnected events of his films
are simple—a boy traveling on a train from the steppe
to the city, riding on a bus, going to a movie and brushing
bare arms with his date, wandering through a train yard. But
every form, every movement, every gesture seems to have found
its precise poetic place, and the emotional terrain contained
within his first feature feels as vast as an ocean. Kairat is
the name of Omirbaev’s autobiographically inspired hero,
who moves through life exactly as many of us do when we’re
adolescents—awkwardly, in bewildered confusion, guarding
a wealth of emotions deep within. One of the best films of the
90s.
preceded by
July
dir. Darezhan Omirbaev, Kazakhstan, 1988, 26 mins, color,
Kazakh w/ English subtitles
Two boys on a hot summer afternoon on the steppe wander into
theater playing a Bollywood movie. They want to go back for
the second show but don’t have enough money for a ticket,
so they think up a scheme to earn the cash. Recounting the "plot"
of this glorious short film from Darezhan Omirbaev doesn’t
begin to do it justice—it’s as controlled a piece
of filmmaking as you could hope to find, and a beautiful evocation
of the landscape of childhood. Omirbaev was a master right from
the start.
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