RAISING A MONUMENT

Documentary film-making is just as important a means of learning about the real world - possibly more - than a feature film. The physical presence of documentation as a basis of studying an individual and his life makes a documentary film not only authentic but also very attractive.

An unmarked grave

Documentary film director Kamala Musazada is convinced that there is only one way that documentary films can win over an audience and that is if the makers are able to convey what it is that excites them and what they want to share with other people. Musazada's work is direct testimony to this. The documentary film "Cabbar Qaryagdioglu" is actually about the things that have disturbed and obsessed her; since childhood she has had a boundless love for the mugam and its exponents. In her first year at the directors' faculty of the University of Culture and the Arts, Kamala learnt that the grave of one of Azerbaijan's greatest singers had been in a state of disrepair for nearly 60 years, it had no gravestone, and only one ordinary stone. "When Cabbar Qaryagdioglu's daughter, Sahla xanim, showed me his desolate grave," Kamala Musazada says, "I gave my word that I would strive to perpetuate the great musician's memory." And she kept her word.

The films "Cabbar Qaryagdioglu" and "Ecaskar sasin abidasi" ("Monument to a magical voice") appeared later. This was originally a course work entitled "Nameless Grave" and it was dedicated to the singer, Cabbar Qaryagdioglu, or rather to the fact that we had forgotten about a man who had done so much to preserve our national heritage, the mugam. It was as if she had made her first film and - oh, joy! - it was well received by her fellow-students and teachers. But making a documentary probably requires more than just professional input from those whom it concerns. But, then, it may not be a question of genre, but of attitude. At first, Kamala Musazada began to raise her voice, trying to draw attention to the flagrant disrespect that was shown to our history and culture. She wrote letters to the president's administration and organized a collection of signatures of cultural figures to an appeal to pay tribute to the great man. She did not rush into accusations. The singer died in 1944, and it was clear that even in Baku, which was a long way from the front line but not from the war, Kamala points out, paying tribute to a departed musician at that time was no easy matter. His family, like hundreds of others, had to struggle to exist and many people had other things to think about than monuments. 

The future documentary film director had to look for people who could testify that Cabbar Qaryagdioglu was buried in Yasamal cemetery. There was a reason why this question was raised. In 1948, when the current honorary burial memorial was imparted with a special status, twelve names of cultural figures were added to the list of those due to be reburied there. It included Qaryagdioglu, but his grave could not be found. Kamala Musazada, to whom the great singer's daughter, Sahla xanim showed the grave about ten years ago, could remember everything around the place but more reliable witnesses were required. She did not lose heart and continued to fight for what she regarded as the restoration of justice. She found Firuddin Alakparov, who had turned 80 and who as a young lad attended the funeral of Cabbar-ami, as many of his contemporaries called the musician, and pointed the way to the graveyard. The evening before the memorial was put up, together with members of the Ministry of Culture, she went to see where it would be placed and praised those in high places that she was able to do so: they planned to place the headstone by an unnamed grave, not of the musician, but another person. On the stone were a few words in Arabic script and Kamala was able to read and persuade the others that the monument should be sited in a different place.

Beware the half-hearted

It would seem that the later emergence of President Ilham Aliyev's instruction about perpetuating the memory of the brilliant singer, in accordance with which a three-metre high monument was placed at the musician's grave, was also down to the film maker who spoke with striking clarity about Qaryagdioglu's work and the destiny of a man whose playing delighted the great Shalyapin and who was described as "the prophet of oriental music". Kamala no longer strove for the singer's re-burial. When the question of siting the headstone was being discussed, people's poet Baxtiyar Vahabzada said that Kamala had accomplished work that was beyond the scope of most people. The director does not divide the world into men and women. She divides it into the half-hearted and those who want to be in on everything. As we know, director is a male profession which demands not only talent but also the ability to cope with a heavy workload. She sometimes relates this to her rural upbringing, where work had to be done come rain or shine. So she would scale a mountain peak, even though there may be a heavy wind or rain, knowing that it had to be done for the sake of the film. That is why she is so demanding of others, although she may appear unladylike to some people. But film-making is a production process, and for it to work all the components must work smoothly together. That is what she strives for, and this strict manner does not always meet with the approval of her colleagues. Even if they don't say anything she knows that sometimes, when she has gone, people will ask: "Does she need more than everyone else?"

And yet, why did she not strive for a re-internment in the Avenue of Honorary Burial? Perhaps she was tired of doing something which, by and large, has nothing to do with the work of a director? Kamala did not let on, but I sensed that what I said had offended her. She spoke about the dozen conditions whereby this could be done according to the laws of the church. Then, after remaining silent, she said: "Don't you believe me?"

Once, during a visit to the Yasamal cemetery where Cabbar is laid to rest, as she approached the grave she sensed that someone behind her had tapped her on the shoulder. She turned round but nobody was there. She took this as a sign that she was being asked to stop.

A prompt or the result of work

It was not by chance that she came to make films about our great singers. Since childhood she had been able to listen to the mugam to such an extent that she could grow to hate those who committed sacrilege in her understanding by, for example, switching on the radio in the middle of a tune. Fate provided her with an encounter with the daughter of the great Qaryagdioglu. That is where it all started. Sometimes it seems to her these were prompts given to her by fate, but with her masculine mind she realizes that the Table came to Mendeleyev in a dream not because it was a message from above, but as a result of much thought and searching. She always wanted to know as much as she could about the mugam and our great singers.

Let's face it, before her films one could not imagine being fascinated by the language of documents to such an extent that a well-known historical figure could be opened up to you from a completely unexpected side.

Binding thread of time

Kamala Musazada's latest films, which were made at the Salnama and Yaddas studios, are part of the "National Heroes of Azerbaijan" cycle: "Qaratel" - about Qaratel Hacimahmudova, who fought in the self-defence battalion of Qazax District; "Cavansir" - about Cavansir Rahimova from Qax District and "Gultakin" - about Doctor Gultakin Askarova from Baku. The director has now completed work on a documentary film "Susali Sahid" ["Victim from Susa", town in Karabakh] about Ramiz Qambarov, the commander of a self-defence battalion in Susa. It would seem that these subjects are very distant from one another, but the director thinks otherwise. She sees in them a continuation of history in both the direct and metaphorical senses. The heroes in all her films are linked by love - for the Motherland, for music and for people. The director links the past and present in her works about the heroes of the Karabakh war. She is grateful to fate for giving her the chance - albeit not her personally, but through the stories of those who knew these people - to touch on lives in which the most important thing was public service. The exploits of these people, she believes, today allow us not to get bogged down in a quagmire of mundanity and to preserve trust in mankind, despite all the evil and lies there are in the world. She recognizes that those who have become national heroes would have been regarded as ordinary people but for the war. They failed to achieve in life the goals they strove for - death prevented them. But, as it turned out, they fulfilled a very important role on earth - protecting their Motherland from the enemy. That, perhaps, was their intended purpose. 

Musazada's film-portraits convince us that in each of us there is a central pivot that determines our actions; it may emerge in the life of her heroes or it may not. Everything depends on us. Life and the achievements of those about whom these films were made prove very demonstratively that those who believe that the time of achievements is in the past are mistaken. During the presentation of her films she always speaks about this because it worries her. She wants those who follow her, when they are familiar with these achievements, to be aware that we are all capable of more than we imagine. "If you do something good and if it is of benefit, then you, too, will remain in people's memory, and that means, history," she says, as though she has just conjured up something good.

An unconquered peak

Like many lovers of the Azerbaijani mugam, since childhood she has had a passionate love for it, unlike, say, those who come to know the wisdom and beauty of this unique art form as they grow older. To her, who has made splendid documentary films about great Azerbaijani singers, what she has accomplished is, as it were, a preparatory stage to the film in which she hopes to express the mugam through the means of fine arts. Or to be more precise, to convey its spirit, the director says. "The mugam, like an Azerbaijani carpet, is our great treasure, the value through which our people are recognized," Kamala says. "It embodies Karabakh, fighting spirit and the talent of the people. By listening to and understanding the mugam, you will get to know yourself and other people. The mugam is the whole world, and it is not by chance that each of the seven basic mugams expresses a different psychological state of a person. We are fortunate to have the mugam." She does not yet know if she will ever fulfil her dream - to convey these feelings through the cinema. She is seeking analogies and trying to understand why not a single director has succeeded in making a film of Marques' novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude". Perhaps it is the same with the mugam? But she continues to strive to achieve her task. She doesn't like having unconquered peaks.