Yulduz Khamidova

Considering that Musakov’s Abdulladzhan (1991) was dedicated to Steven Spielberg, we might suggest that these four boys embody nothing more complicated than a conflict of youthful innocence with some ominous threat—the basic workings of E.T. (1982) or War of the Worlds (2005), say. That threat, however, is best understood not through vague nationalism or warmed-over socialism, but through the other reference-point of Abdulladzhan—Tarkovskii’s Stalker (1980). Musakov leaves his boys in a simplified radiance so bright and so overexposed that it no longer looks like the skies of sunny Tashkent, but a disturbing, borderless luminosity to match the flat tonal range of Stalker’s “Zone.” Our Uzbek boys are nowhere in particular; this is a broader domain than anything international.

A young doctor serving cotton growers goes to the city. On the highway, when trying to overtake a motorcade, the traffic police stops the car. The events that take place next are an accurate and witty model of a life permeated through and through with absurd relationships, ridiculous demands and inexplicable prohibitions...

The story is about Hashim, who, as often happens with boys, gets into various troubles.

Farukh is accused of financial fraud with the loans of the bank where he works. He is being judged. To save her son, the mother sells a house and a car, covering the debts of the bank. Farukh is going free, but now he urgently needs to find money to save his house. He learns about the fatal illness of the daughter of the chairman of the bank and offers her to marry him and promises to "carry her in her arms" and make her happy. She agrees to a marriage of convenience ...