Abdulladzhan, or Dedicated to Steven Spielberg

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.

Cast

Shukhrat Kayumov Abdulladzhan - alien

Tuti Yusupova Holida-aka - Bazarbai's wife

Radzhab Adashev Bazarbai

Tuychi Aripov Rais-ota - collective farm chairman

Dzhavlon Khamrayev Yuldash

Khodzhiakbar Nurmatov Hasanbai

Jamol Hoshimov Matkaul

Sergey Dreyden airplane pilot

Galina Lukovnikova-Mamedova village resident

Abror Tursunov шофер председателя

Ergash Muminov Boltobay - Bazarbai's son

Vladimir Menshov Ivan Ivanovich Nakhlobuchko - general

Metadata from the source database.