Film Chronicle of the Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex. Television and Cinema of Kyrgyzstan in the 70s - Early 80s. Part - 15

The film is dedicated to all the builders of the Toktogul HPP.

Artistic analysis of reality becomes an imaginative comprehension of the world, an authorial, lyrical discovery of it.

From the plan of a misty street in the summer heat of an old village (title “+20”) to the sprawling, wide-screen view of a new multi-story city (title “+90”), everything shown and narrated acquires new depth and a new perspective. The inclusion of the "time counter" — a reminder of the depth of the future sea — not only logically structured the composition of the "Diary." Two combined, "digital" frames gave the episode's structure not so much order as — and this was extremely important in the undertaken artistic analysis of objective reality — the opportunity for a plot-image recreation of the documentary material according to the laws of dramaturgy.

...On the screen — frames of the newsreel. Off-screen — the author's commentary: “When the first builders came here, danger lurked at every step — falling stones from above. They had to clear the slopes, and the builders became rock climbers. They even managed to transport bulldozers across the Naryn on cables... And then they began to carve a bulldozer path up to a height of 600 meters. 1964, newsreel footage. Leading the way were bulldozer operator Ebazir Karaev and foreman Benik Maylyan. He was coming from the edge... Over there. Why?

He will tell you about it himself now.

— If the bulldozer stops, it will roll back; no brakes can hold it. If the bulldozer operator knows there’s a person behind...

The contrast in perception of what is happening is introduced by the hero of the episode, Benik Maylyan — the site manager at the dam of the under-construction HPP, one of its pioneers, subjectively assessing the objective, documentary facts we have just seen. The "discrepancy" in Maylyan's assessment of his work is emphasized by the author:

This audio track was managed to be recorded secretly, after two weeks of inquiries. And during the filming, when asked, “What was your work about?”

Benik Maylyan replied: 
While giving due credit to Maylyan's courage, the author consistently edits the chronicle (young Maylyan — the very movement) and frames of new footage (gray-haired Maylyan in his trailer, calm and amused at the table), emphasizing not only the inter-frame contrast of the image and audio track but also the intra-frame one: the recognition of the hero's merits (the passing Red Banner on the wall during the ironic response about the essence of work on the “bulldozer path”). At the intersection of the subjective audio line and the objective visual — contrasting plans of fact, the movement begins: from document to image, from the fixation of Maylyan's everyday life to the creation of his character.

After discussions about the future sea, after abstract children's drawings on the "Theme of the Sea," after the resettlement of residents associated with it and the already begun preparation of its bottom, the authors finally show the Sea. And their imagination firmly "stands on the ground" — the geography of the setting is recognizable, the information in the commentary is connected with previous episodes:
 
...120 meters. In a few years, yachts will sail here, and the children of Toktogul will ride on steamboats. In about 10... 15 years...

It is characteristic that the combined frame is shot on a "real" long panorama along the mountain slopes. And the appearance of drawn "marine" animation here is not "rejected" by the visual-semantic structure of the episode: it confirms what the author has just said. The fact develops into fiction. Fiction — the subjective-authorial representation of the Sea — acquires clarity and persuasiveness of fact.

...The final frames of the film. Buses at the stop. The builders settle into them as usual — soon there will be a shift at the dam... The camera observes what is happening attentively, studiously. It is important for the authors, very important, to understand these people... Here passes a group of older workers... girls with "shopping bags" run by; a woman in a white scarf looks thoughtfully out of the bus window — a kind face; a young guy squints his eyes mockingly... a girl in a "fashionable" light helmet glanced coyly at the lens... Different characters, different fates... The bus smoothly starts moving. The camera continues to scrutinize the faces...

By editing these psychologically convincing, expressively authentic close-ups of people, whose names we do not know, the author thus creates an "unnamed" collective portrait of the Builders, elevating the ideal essence of the fact into a symbol, emphasizing his intent with a direct address to the heroes of the film: “We dedicate our film to all the builders of the Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex... Goodbye, builders... Wishing you a happy shift!”

It is natural that the "emotional peaks" of the cinematic narrative occur precisely in those episodes where the symbolization of the fact by abstracting from its specificity reaches the highest tension.

Resolved in the style of portrait sketches with a minimal number of plans (I—6; II—9; III—5; IV—5), they differ in "technology": while the first three are shot with cinematic observation, usually with a static camera using telephoto lenses, and united by a single melody that became the leitmotif of the "Diary" (the music for the film was composed by A. and K. Gevorkyans), the emotional persuasiveness of "Meeting on the Road" is achieved through different visual and sound means.

The boyish mischief — “who's who?” — and the light audacity of the camera gave this episode a sense of joy in existence, as the newcomers' car confidently and happily glides forward along the road, shining from the summer rain, obeying the captivating rhythm of the Kyrgyz melody — into the new city, into a new life, and for a long time, through the windshield, not losing sight of the smiling scamp on a bicycle — probably also a newcomer, who, turning (in rhythm with the song) alternately over both shoulders, curiously and playfully challenges us with his gaze... From what seems to be an insignificant, trivial fact, the author extracts a joyful philosophy of life...

The emotional intensity of these independent episodes is so great that, being on different "pages" of the "Diary," they subtly, gradually reveal yet another, "hidden" artistic depth of the author's intent — the most important for Vidugiris and, apparently, precisely for this reason, not straightforwardly declared, creating in this poetic documentary film a symbolic image of Happiness.

“Naryn Diary.” Television and Cinema of Kyrgyzstan in the 70s—early 80s. Part - 14