Osip Brik

The screen adaptation of the novel by Tadjik writer Sadriddine Aini, telling the story of a tramp who falls in love with a rich girl, was supposed to become the first full-length feature film in Central Asian film history. But the unfinished Dokhunda was banned by the Soviet authorities when film production was already in full swing. No footage survived. This is why Izvolov had to rely on Lev Kuleshov’s draft to study and appreciate the maestro’s vision and the unique aesthetic concept, which was never to be realised during Kuleshov’s lifetime.

Naturally, the circus milieu of 2 Buldy 2 (1929) encourages stunts. A father and son, both clowns, are to perform together for the first time, but the civil war separates them, and the elder Buldy, tempted for a moment to acquiesce to the White forces, casts his lot with the revolution. At the climax Buldy Jr. escapes the Whites thanks to flashy trampoline and trapeze acrobatics; the gaping enemy soldiers forget to shoot.

In 1918 a young and simple Mongol herdsman and trapper is cheated out of a valuable fox fur by a European capitalist fur trader. Ostracized from the trading post, he escapes to the hills after brawling with the trader who cheated him. In 1920 he becomes a Soviet partisan, and helps the partisans fight for the Soviets against the occupying British army. However he is captured by the British when they try to requisition cattle from the herdsmen at the same time as the commandant meets with a reincarnated Grand Lama. After the trapper is shot, the army discovers an amulet that suggests he is a direct descendant of Genghis Khan. They find him still alive, so the army restores his health and plans to use him as the head of a puppet regime. The trapper is thus thrust into prominence as he is placed in charge of the puppet government. By the end, however, the "puppet" turns against his masters in an outburst of fury.