Khasan-Arbakesh . Hasan-Arbakesh

Duration: 01:31:00 At first glance, youmight think that the film is going to tell a trivial story about an arbakesh named Hasan, who has a cart and a horse and dreams only of earning enough to be able to marry his beloved. As in a traditional fairy tale Hasan is young and handsome, strong and determ...

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Bibliographic Details
Other Authors: Kimyagarov, Boris
Institution:Open Society Archives at Central European University
Language:Russian
Published: Tajikfilm 1965
Tajikistan
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10891/osa:53cd2d6e-196f-4183-a5dd-80e36fd35d91
Description
Summary:Duration: 01:31:00 At first glance, youmight think that the film is going to tell a trivial story about an arbakesh named Hasan, who has a cart and a horse and dreams only of earning enough to be able to marry his beloved. As in a traditional fairy tale Hasan is young and handsome, strong and determined and very much in love. The fairy-tale plot, however, is set against the very real historical background, which soon starts to interfere brutally with the romantic thrust of the story. The film was shot during the so-called "Thaw" of the 1960s and contains a metaphorical protest against the establishement of Soviet regime in Tajikistan. Its main theme ia the clash between the traditional Tajik culture, and the new "invading" Soviet one. Unlike most of the "revolutionary" films that were shot in the Soviet Asian republics and focused on the bloody fights between the "reactionary" forces of traditional societies and the "righteous" Soviet "liberators," "Hasan-Arbakesh" shows the process of peaceful sovietization, that nevertheless, ruthlessly reroutes the fates of the characters. Hasan's cart is replaced by a truck, personal work becomes collectivized, the veil is jettisoned and a liberated woman, like Hasan's beloved Saodat, joins the Komsomol and is sent to teach in a romote kishlak. By the end of the film, the ever-joyous,singing and dancing Hasan is only a shadow of his former self, lost in a totally new strange world, full of "kolkhoz peasants", "proletarians" , pioneers with bugles and drums, and endless columns of cars, "busy building Stalin's communism."
Published:1965