A young boy receives a brutal sentimental education under the open skies of medieval Uzbekistan. This stylistic tour de force by Ali Khamraev is almost impossible to categorise: a mystic vision, a Western western, a display of colour and movement, a portrait of adolescence painted in broad expressionist strokes. The melancholic power of nature comes into its own thanks to the wide-screen and dreamlike atmosphere: it is when the protagonist abandons himself to the landscapes that his and our own emotions spring to life. Influenced by Persian miniatures and poems from the classical literature of Central Asia, Ali Khamraev paints and sculpts a nature that vivifies and reflects emotions – a nature in which the sources of hope and faith are to be found: following the birds means learning about freedom.
M.F.M.
