An in-depth study of Darezhan Omirbaev’s directing work is obligatory for the work of every filmmaker, especially directors and critics. His films are considered classics of the Kazakh New Wave, along with the works of Serik Aprymov, Ardak Amirkulov and others. Numerous articles, term and graduation papers have been written about Omirbaev’s work, and dozens of dissertations have been defended. All these facts present Omirbaev as a modern classic. In 2020, the script of his film The Poet (Akyn)won a grant from the State National Cinema Support Center (SNCSC). In this article, we shall analyze Omirbaev’s work on this film, focusing on the author’s style.
All those familiar with his creative path are aware of the striking methods that run from one film to another. Mentions and quotes of previous works, numerous dreams of the characters, identical mise-en-scènes that follow the hero’s fight in every film: this is but an incomplete list of details which point to Omirbaev’s direction, even if these methods were not invented by him. In this Therefore, it is necessary to determine first the relationship of the director’s work to well-known trends in world cinema.
In all his films, we see a strict adherence to the laws of the French New Wave. Like Jean-Luc Godard, Omirbaev quotes from his own films, using episodes from the earlier film Killer (1998) in the film Road (Zhol, 2001) when the lead character, Amir, imagines in his mind scenes for the new film. It is well known that the storyline of Godard’s Breathless (A bout de souffle, 1960) is made up of clichés from Hollywood film noir. The last scene is considered one of the most famous in the history of cinema, and was freely quoted by Rashid Nugmanov in his cult film The Needle (Igla, 1988). Indeed, we can draw a stylistic parallel of the Kazakh New Wave with the French New Wave. In 1959 the well-known French Arts magazine published a speech by producer Henry Deutschmeister, who argued that the New Wave filmmakers had “liberated cinema from all types of censorship, assigning it a peculiar concept of art, morality, life, youth education of youth, and the prestige of the nation” (cited from Jeancolas 1979, 110-119). Certainly, the situation is similar to the appearance in Kazakhstan in the late 1980s of an anti-totalitarian cinema, freed from state orders and Soviet ideology.
Moreover, Deutschmeister commented on the citational quality of the films: “They are quotation films in which a scene from Hitchcock is glued to a scene from Bunuel that precedes a long episode from Vigo, filmed in the spirit of Rossellini, but rejuvenated with techniques in the manner of Chayefsky” (cited in Jeancolas 1979, 110-119), and we see similarities with the films of Kazakh New Wave. In particular, in the film Kairat, Omirbaev quoted Franz Kafka’s novel The Knock at the Manor Gate, Georg Büchner’s drama Woyzeck, as well as the films Ivan’s Childhood (1962) by Andrei Tarkovsky and The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) by Luis Buñuel. In his analysis, the Kazakh film scholar Bauyrzhan Nogerbek (1998) stated: “The citation in the film Kairat is harmonious, it is the essence and form of this film composition.” Hence, we can reach the conclusion: the smart and expressive use of quotes in the film did not reproach the director with lack of imagination, on the contrary, it is a certain kind of praise to the frankness and honesty of its creator.
In line with the citational mode, Omirbaev’s films can be attributed to postmodernism. But a more striking parallel runs to the theory of auteur cinema. In fact, both in style and in subject matter, Omirbaev’s films are deeply personal. A striking example of auteur cinema is the French director Robert Bresson, who is Omirbaev’s favorite. Both directors have carefully thought through the way in which to stage a film, taking into account the smallest details and mathematically calibrating the rhythm.
Omirbaev’s style of narration is deeply individual. Taking from the classics everything that could help him, he has been able to create a synthesis of different styles. This is a distinctive feature of the director, also as one of the leading directors of the Kazakh New Wave. However, thirty years have gone past since this famous trend in Kazakh cinema, and so we must wonder how Omirbaev’s style has changed.
In The Poet (Akyn, 2021), the director has not changed his mathematical approach, but continues to study a person with all their passions, focusing on the loneliness of talent. It seems as if in this film he portrays a matured Tolegen from Shuga (2010): the characters are similar. In fact, the film’s conflict is simple and as old as time, which is confirmed by the plot parallel between the writer Didar and the famous akyn, the revolutionary Makhambet (Otemisuly, 1804-1846). Both need to decide how much their talent is worth. The protagonist reads the story of Makhambet, which leads him to his final decision. Both poets are similar to each other, revealing their inner world in similar situations. Those in power ask bluntly about the worth of their word, their praise and hypocrisy. Again, Omirbaev turns to the history of cinema, this time Kazakh cinema. Bulat Mansurov’s film Funeral Feast (Trizna, 1987) such a conflict between two akyns has been shown: one praises his patron in exchange for a comfortable life; the other remains faithful to the truth, although he suffers from injustice. The film shows how the name of the great and truthful Akan Seri (Koramsauly, 1843-1913) remained in people’s minds for centuries. The structure of the parable, the literary references and the dense off-screen voice poetically reveal the idea of the pride of a hero’s loneliness who was born not in his time. Omirbaev uses other methods of showing this idea.
Starting with the very first episode, the filmmaker mocks modern writers. Not a hint is left from an analysis of a serious philosophical issue with clever thoughts and loud recitations after an office defile of a beautiful laboratory assistant. Later, in a dream, Didar again sees how smart men are affected by the beauty of the female body: this is modern life. The difference between the history of Makhambet and Didar is in the outcome: although Didar did not pay with his life for the truth, as his predecessor did, the basis of the conflict lies in the venality or pricelessness of art.
The film shows Didar’s emotional turmoil in an interesting way. In an expensive car showroom, he tries on wealth: he makes himself comfortable in the seat of a jeep, adapts to the convenience, and he likes it exactly until the moment when the seller looks at the old red boots of the poor writer. Suddenly, in a Gogolian manner, the poet starts feeling awkward, absent-minded and like a “superfluous man.” With each episode, the director reveals the “wrongness” of Didar’s life, his backwardness in the capitalist world. A former classmate, now a chauffeur, chuckles at him, suggesting it would be better to write the memoirs of a “bigwig”; a fellow diner taunts him in the restaurant with portraits of great but dead poets. The apogee of the failed life of the writer Didar is a poetry reading in the provinces without any visitors.
The pitiful image of the protagonist is shown in the director’s favorite empty frame. In the dark empty foyer of the Culture Center, not even on the stage, without any spotlights, stands the lonely figure of the writer, whom nobody needs. Didar enters the hall with hope and, oddly enough, finds a grateful listener. This watershed moment completely changes the film’s focus, where talent remains in oblivion. The remains of the great Makhambet find rest in a majestic mausoleum, and his poems inspire posterity. Didar is on the road, in the director’s favorite means of transport: the train; he reaches the decision to refuse the praise of yet another patron. Omirbaev brings his hero to this decision, following the logic of the plot and the mathematics of compositional construction. As always in Omirbaev’s works.
It is especially important to highlight the metaphorical image of the mother in Omirbaev’s work. In all his films, the hero is abandoned by his mother, who leaves him to live on his own; in The Road she even dies. However, only in this film the mother does not fit into the world of her son. The episode with the grandmother, who cannot find a place in her son’s apartment, is painfully plausible. Nevertheless, Didar needs a mother: only she rejoices at the smallest success of her son. However, the function of the mother does not end there: she is a metaphor for the native land, to which Didar is strongly attached. We implicitly see this motif of the land of ancestors in the new time of Didar: in other words, it is important not only in the time of Makhambet. So, the Kazakh land and its children are not weak, as long as there are poets praising it, treating the bleeding hearts of the people
Ultimately, by the image of the poet Omirbaev means any author: writer, artist, playwright, director. In the case of this film, Didar refuses a profitable project, and remains true to himself and to pure art. Are there many such artists nowadays? Such an ending in Omirbaev’s work is amazing, because in his earlier films, things looked much sadder. The happiest ending for Omirbaev was in his previous film, The Student, where the main character reached an insight when in prison. In The Poet, everything is different: the hero has a home, a family, a mother and faith in his calling. Perhaps this is the way how time shapes the director.
Works Cited
Jeancolas, Jean-Pierre. 1979. Le cinéma des Français. La Ve république (1958-1978). Stock/Cinéma. Cited from the translation into Russian by I. Epshtein as Zhan-P’er Zhankola, Novaia volna. Kino Frantsii. Piataia Respublika (1958-78).
Nogerbek, Bauyrzhan R. 1998. Kino Kazakhstana. Almaty: Natsional’nyi prodiuserskij tsentr.
Kamilla Gabdrashitova © 2023