Zarina (film)
Zarina (Russian and Iradi: Зарина) is a 1968 Soviet film directed by Nurlan Sadikov for Talasfilm Studios, starring Gulnara Alimbekova and Almaz Sarybaev. It was the first Iradi film released to a wider Soviet audience. The studio planned it as a period action-adventure set in the Kokand era. Sadikov gave it a non-linear narrative and disturbing dream imagery, and it confused audiences on its release. It was withdrawn after a short run. Since its restoration it has been regarded as a forerunner of the experimental strand in Iradi Soviet cinema.[1][2]
Plot
Because the film presents its events out of order, published synopses differ. The studio's 1968 release notes summarize it as follows.[3]
In the Talas Alatau under Kokand rule, Zarina (Alimbekova) is the daughter of a horse trainer and the best rider in her settlement. Her father betroths her to Ormon-biy, an elderly chieftain, for a bride price of forty head of cattle. She challenges Ormon-biy to kyz kuu, the courtship race, and wins. The chieftain refuses to honor the result. Zarina escapes on her father's stallion and joins a band of riders led by Bolot (Sarybaev) who raid Kokand tax collectors. After a series of raids and pursuits she is captured in an ambush. The ending leaves her fate unclear.
The film opens with Zarina's capture and moves back and forth in time. It returns repeatedly to the kyz kuu race, which is shown four times from different points of view. Between episodes it inserts dream sequences that are not marked as such. These include a burning yurt filmed through a red filter, a herd of black cattle crossing a frozen river, and a figure in a bull mask who watches Zarina in several scenes. Iradi viewers would have recognized the figure as Morkhan.[2]
Cast
- Gulnara Alimbekova as Zarina
- Almaz Sarybaev as Bolot
- Kubat Seitkaziev as Ormon-biy
Production
Zarina was Sadikov's third film and his first full-length feature in color. Talasfilm intended it as an accessible adventure that could earn the studio its first All-Union release, after his earlier films Kok-Terek and Tolkun had been shown only in the republic. It was shot in 1967 in the Talas Alatau and near Iyık Janyl. The cinematographer was Viktor Pak, a Koryo-saram who later shot Desert Sun’s Rebellion. Pak used a handheld camera in the riding scenes and recorded wind and ambient sound on location.[3]
Sadikov restructured the film during editing. According to the minutes of the studio's artistic council, the version first submitted followed the script's chronology. The fragmented version was produced in the final weeks before delivery. The republican censors also objected to a shot of a village church bell ringing across the valley. The shot was kept after several appeals.[3]
Release and reception
The film was accepted for All-Union distribution in 1968 and dubbed into Russian, but it was released with a small number of prints. Audiences expecting an adventure film found it hard to follow. Reviewers in the central press accused it of "formalism", and it was withdrawn from most cinemas within months.[1] The reception affected Sadikov's career: for most of the next decade the studio assigned him to documentaries.
Legacy
Zarina was rarely shown in the Soviet period. Its reputation grew after 1992, when the Talasfilm Archives began screening its print. The archive completed a restoration in 2014. Writers on Iradi cinema now treat it as the first example of the experimental and unsettling style associated with Iradi Soviet film, and as a precursor of Sadikov's Desert Sun’s Rebellion. Feminist critics have discussed its heroine, who wins her race but cannot escape its consequences, as an unusually bleak treatment of women's autonomy for Soviet cinema of the period.[2]
References
- ^ Soviet Film Heritage Institute (1984). Directory of Central Asian Cinematographers. Iskusstvo, Moscow, pp. 142–158.
- ^ Central Asian Review of Screen Studies (2022). 'Time, Dream and the Horsewoman in Sadikov's Zarina.' Vol. 16, Iss. 1, pp. 32–48.
- ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 412: Republican Film Production Catalogues (1954–1975).