A Deep Sense of Belonging to the Land: Three Notable Films From Azerbaijan
The Azerbaijani director Ilgar Najaf’s Pomegranate Orchard (2017) was one of the best films at IFFI 2017, Goa and BIFFES 2018, Bengaluru. It was inspired by Anton Chekhov’s play “The Cherry Orchard”. Najaf’s 2011 film Buta is more than just a charming film. Asif Rustamov’s Down the River (2014) is impressive for a film which hasn’t won any award in a film festival. A common theme emerges when these three films are seen together.
Buta (2011)
The first film of Ilgar Najaf, Buta, won the Best Children’s Film Award at Asia Pacific screen Awards. It opens with the shots of villagers playing polo interspersed with credits appearing over fascinating carpet motifs. Called “Buta”, this motif is a symbol with multiple interpretations. Mainly it symbolizes life and it is taken up as a recurrent motif in the film. It is seen in the carpet woven by the grandmother in the memory of her daughter who has passed away. She is going to present the carpet to her grandson named Buta on his birthday. This young boy makes his own “Buta” motif with huge stones that he carries up the hill.
This is an episodic film that rambles. An old man, who left the village after failing in love decades back, returns to his village and narrates his story to Buta. A salesman drives to the village with merchandise and finds time for falling in love with the beautiful girl Goncha as his van gets stuck in the boulder-strewn land. Except the unruly boys who make life difficult for Buta, this is a film devoid of drama. It’ll be categorized as a children’s film but it offers something more. Inspired by the acclaimed Soviet filmmaker Sergei Parajanov, Najaf displays a deep sense of belonging to the land and its people.
Down the River (2014)
Asif Rustamov’s Down the River revolves around the coach Ali who trains the national team of boys for a rowing race. One of them is his son Ruslan who doesn’t keep pace with the rest. Ali keeps scolding Ruslan and criticizes his wife Leyla of spoiling him. Ali has a Polish lover Sasha with whom he has a chance to leave for Poland and start life afresh. His disenchanted friend Valera is critical of the Soviet legacy when he says, “we are nothing but waste products of Soviet Union”. Valera gets his green card and meets Ali before leaving for US. Just before the race starts, Ali loses confidence in his son and replaces him. His team wins the cup bringing laurels to the country but Ruslan is missing after he dives into the river.
The labyrinthine structures around the dams to which Ali goes to see dead bodies for identifying his son accentuate the intensity of the search. But the film goes beyond merely dealing with the theme of father and son. The larger theme of Ali’s attachment to the land is an undercurrent in the film. This is evoked in the scene in which Ali treats himself to blackberries. It comes immediately after a tragic scene, giving a Chekhovian touch. This moving film, without a trace of sentimentality, hasn’t been lucky to win a major award which it deserves.
Pomegranate Orchard (2017)
The title of Najaf’s award-winning film is a reference to Parajanov’s The Color of Pomegranates (1969). Color is one of the themes of the film. Jalal, a young boy, is diagnosed with color blindness after he falls from the roof of his house accidentally. It is tragic that he won’t be able to see the color of pomegranates and asks his grandfather Shamil what is their color. This loss of color forebodes the doom of their orchard.
Shamil has been managing the orchard with the help of his daughter in law Sara and grandson Jalal. But, despite his infirmity and old age, Shamil refuses to sell the orchard to his neighbor Rasim who wants to bring down the trees to construct a factory. This is somewhat like Lopakhin who wants to fell the trees and build summer cottages in Chekhov’s play, “The Cherry Orchard”. Sara narrates a nightmare in which she sees the pomegranate juice flowing like blood. Her husband Gabil who had left for Russia, feeling guilty over the death of his brother, returns from Moscow after 12 years. Najaf’s recurring theme of attachment to his land comes through in Shamil’s clinging on to his pomegranate orchard. Gabil, the man from Moscow, has other ideas and disposes it off.
The sense of belonging to the native land despite the odds can be seen in some other films from countries that were under the former Soviet Union such as Yuri’s Day (Russia/ Kirill Serebrennikov/ 2008) and Volcano (Ukraine/ Roman Bondarchuk/ 2018). The Azerbaijani films can be seen in that perspective.
There is a touch of criticism of Russia in two of the Azerbaijani films. However, the quality displayed by these films points to the positive aspect of the Russian influence on the cinema of Azerbaijan.
