Cinema
В талом снеге звон ручья
Davlat Khudonazarov · 1982
Synopsis
In a remote village in the Tajik mountains, Shodi Makhmadaliev has tended the herds for years. A former combatant, he lives simply and with dignity, faithful to the memory of his fallen comrades: he looks after a young deaf shepherd, but turns away from his own son, who has fallen into delinquency. When the old soldier's heart is too heavy, he returns in thought to the war years and hopes to find Kostya, the tank crewman who saved his life in battle and whose first name is all he knows.
Context
The film adapts Le Jour de la Victoire, a story by Valeri Talvik, who wrote the screenplay; the cinematography is by Valeri Vilensky and the music by Eduard Artemiev. The old Shodi is played by a non-professional actor, Mukhitdin Salokhov, himself a veteran, whose presence before the camera the critic Pyotr Shepotinnik praised in 1985. Eighty-eight minutes long, the film was shot in colour, but only a black-and-white copy survives, the colour version having been lost in the early nineties.
Who it is for
For those interested in Soviet cinema of Central Asia and in the memory of the war among ordinary people.
Prizes and reception
The Soviet film festival, held in Leningrad in 1983, awarded it its special “Memory” prize.