A Father's Will: Double View in Kinocultura

Kinocultura's Editor - Ms. Birgit Beumers (Bristol/Aberystwyth) decided to include two review written by Gulbara Tolomushova & Gulnara Abikeyeva on a film "A Father's Will" made by two directors: Bakyt Mukul & Dastan Japar Uulu from Kyrgyzstan. The movie won Golden Zenith in First Films section at the 40th Montreal World Film Festival and also became A Best Film Of Central Asia according Kazakh National Cinema Acadeny Tulpar - 2016.

The Son for the Father by Gulbara Tolomushova

Fragments:

Many compatriots, who have left Kyrgyzstan over the years, sooner or later consider where they want to be buried. Some people have a strong desire to find their last rest in the native land. This theme forms the subject of the film A Father's Will, which was made by two directors, Bakyt Mukul and Dastan Japar Uulu. In the lead role of Azat is Iamn Mukul, a graduate of the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet in St. Petersburg.

Azat is the film's protagonist, an American of Kyrgyz origin, who at the age of eleven left the country with his parents to go to the US. Fifteen years later, Azat comes back to Kyrgyzstan to carry out the last will of his late father and bring the latter's ashes back home. The problem is complicated by the fact that Azat's father, Murat, before his departure abroad borrowed money from many local peasants and never returned it...

...It is hard for Azat to constanly face the spiteful attitude of the fellow villagers, and the last drop is the behaviour of uncle Choro, who has autocratically entered his house, not greated him at the meeting, and now makes claims addressed at Azat's father, while it is the son who has to listen. Therefore Azat's nerves give way, and he snaps. In 1935 Stalin said: "The son does not answer for the father..." (Pravda, 4 Dec.1935), but in this film the son is ready to answer for the father: it is for this purpose he has come to Kyrgyzstan, and in good time, still in the US, sold the car, collected money to pay off the father's debts, and most important, to carry out the last will of the parent: to bury him on the native soil...

All text of the review here

We overcome hard times only by saying goodbye to them by Gulnara Abikeyeva

Fragments:

The world premiere of the film A Father's Will by directors-debutants Dastan Japar Uulu and Bakyt Mukul took place at the Montreal IFF. Japar Uulu is a young cameraman, Mukul a well-known comedian. With this film, the duo from Kyrgyzstan has produced an astonishing result, powerful and important, withh a significance that extends not only to the artistic, but also to the socio-historical level...

...In the film there is a remarkable episode, which lasts a whole seven minutes: Azat goes on a britchka with his schoolmates's father$ together they have boards and now they are on their way back home. They pass through the entire settlement and speak about the difficulties of the 90s, and that many people left the aul then, abandoning their houses. The camera pans out and shows the panorama of these abandoned houses. Moreover, we seem to travel together with the heroes on this britchka, backwards, feeling uncomfortable. We want to turn round with the whole body to see the horse and the road ahead instead of being pulled backwards. This discomfort at a physical level supports the story of the aul's bad fortune that we see on the screen...

All text of the review here

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