Legends of Turkmen cinema. BABA ANNANOV: "PEOPLE, I LOVE YOU!"
September 12, 2017 | 17:50 |3358
... Time is not barren. It continues to gives us its heroes. The notable people lived and created at any epoch, they were prose writers and poets, composers and artists, people who left their deep mark in art. In the middle of the last century, a life and artistic stories of such stars of Turkmen cinema as Alty Karliev, Sary Karryev, Baba Annanov, Akmurad Byashimov and others were developed. The world recognition of composer Nury Halmamedov began from music to movies. His melodies for the movie "Contest" (Shukur Bakhshi), "Decisive step", "Bitter destiny", ("Kechpelek") and others have become a classic of Turkmen music and human culture. In the life of every person, there is undoubtedly an inextricable dependence between the land where his childhood and youth passed, and further destiny. People and the land create a kind of aura that invisibly accompanies us in the journey of our life. In particular, any person at an early age, like a sponge, absorbs the smells surrounding him, sounds, colors, words, from which his later pictures of the world are formed. The village of Karadamak, where Baba Annanov was born and raised, today became almost the center of the city, and then, in the mid-40s and 50s of the last century, it was a suburb, a small oasis, drowning in the greenery of the gardens. There were one-storeyed nice cottages with large courtyards, in which it was so nice to talk at tea with relatives, friends and neighbors, irrigation ditches (kyariz) with clean water, vegetable gardens with lush growth, fruit groves, and vineyards. The artist, the founder of the modern Turkmen school of painting Byashim Nurali, who lived next door to Annanov’s family, had the largest vineyard. The village was inhabited by the former front-line soldiers, soldiers' widows, farmers, horse-breeders – all of them were simple, sincere, kind people. It was post-war and hungry time. But everyone in the village lived as one family - cheerfully, amicably, helping each other. Baba will subsequently write in his stories about everything that surrounded him at that time. You read and recognize the signs of childhood. Here is an irrigation ditch (kyariz), here is a big brown dog lying at the fence, mulberry at the house, here is Usta-aga polishing the sticks to make arabas, and in the courtyard opposite, here is the jeweler Chary-aga knocking on the anvil. Baba’s father did not return from the war, and a few years later he lost his mother. She died on the night of the Ashgabat earthquake of 1948, on the threshold of her house, when she rushed to warn her son sleeping in the yard about the danger. At the same moment Baba woke and hurried to the house to protect his mother. She died right in front of his eyes. Baba began to dig out his mother and reached for her hand with blood flowing from it... Baba held on to the memory of his mother and admiration for her through his whole life. He said that at the moment when he touched the warm mother's hand he felt as if her soul had entered into him and warmed his son's heart to the last days of his life. One of his most touching and heartbreaking stories he ever wrote was the "Mother's Heart".Vladimir ZAREMBO
Before the shooting of the movie "Decisive step" during the casting sessions, Baba Annanov asked the director Alta Karliev to give him the opportunity to choose the actress to play his mother.
And he chose the wonderful actress Ogulgurban Durdiyeva, explaining: "Her eyes remind me of my mother's eyes."
The choice was excellent - afterwards O. Durdiyeva received an Honorary Diploma for the best performance of a female role at one of the international movie festivals.
Baba neither in childhood, nor in his youth did not think about the profession of the actor. From an early age he worked on the collective farm, earning his living. He liked to watch movies, but to play himself...
After school, he applied to the Department of Law of Ashgabat University. He worked during the day, preparing for the exams in the evening. Baba Annanov could eventually become a qualified lawyer, because he had always acutely reacted to any injustice, but the fortune had other plans for Baba and changed his fate.
Literally on the eve of the entrance exams, Baba read an announcement about the entry of a Turkmen group to the Tashkent Theater Institute. Curiosity led him to the classroom where were the examinations took place. He stood aside and looked at other applicants, candidates for Hamlet. However, the tall and handsome unfamiliar guy with spiritual features attracted the attention of the members of the admission committee so much that they offered him to attest. When Baba had declaimed the poem (he was a prefect reciter), he was immediately admitted.
After graduating from the Institute, Baba Annanov worked for some time in the Chardzhou Drama Theater, and then worked as a director of the Ashgabat TV, he also played small roles in the cinema. The first movie, in which he starred, was called "The First Exam". Baba passed “this exam” successfully - the audience remembered the acting of the young actor. But the true national love and recognition came to him after the release of the movie "Decisive step". The role of Artyk Babaly became his star role. But it could not have been any other way.
Artistic expert board of the studio did not approve Baba, putting a surprising diagnosis: too bright, handsome for the role of a village farmhand, and they recommended finding someone simpler. And then the director of the movie Alty Karliev emphatically declared: either Baba Annanov will play Artyk or nobody else will. In the first year of the movie's demonstration the cinema audience was up to 50 million (!) viewers. It was a unique record. Only a few of the movies, created in that period, had the honor to gather such a huge audience.
Baba Annanov burst into the cinema without a warmup, immediately declaring himself as a professional master. Apparently, his early adulthood and deep knowledge of people allowed him to avoid long and painful searches and comprehension of the character of his heroes. He did not play a role, but lived in it – he was inspired by the characters that he created, put his heart in his roles, filling them with the strength of his extraordinary personality.
He was offered one role after another. A young actor, but already a mature artist, was shooting a lot and willingly, and not only in his native Turkmen film. He was invited by the studios of all the Central Asian republics, Russia and Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Ukraine.
Baba himself did not count his roles, did not like to talk about them, he did not really like journalists. He did not seek popularity - audience love and recognition came to him immediately and forever. He did not fuss in chase of the awards - they themselves found Baba. He was a laureate of the State Award of Turkmenistan named after Makhtumkuli, People's Artist of Turkmenistan, People's Artist of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), laureate of various movie festivals.
He did not have to adapt to fashion, because he drew strength from the eternal source of national and world culture. He could not imagine himself without cinema; he lived with the cinema, managing to act simultaneously in several movies, despite the hard psychological and physical loads.
However, despite the external splendor of full well-being, on his cheerful good-natured disposition and rare sociability, his soul was filled with a deep inner drama. Baba Annanov was depressed because of the rejected ideas about the great personalities of the history of Turkmen and the ideologization of a number of roles. He got discouraged because of the straightforwardness of the proposed scenarios, the deaf prescription and stereotypes of the type of social hero, the lack of choice of the desired characters, the actor's dependence.
Baba tried to change genres, played in historical dramas, adventure movies, comedies, tragedies, gladly agreed to play in episodes if he saw the hero's vivid character. Energetic, full of intentions Baba Annanov wanted to play large, complex, diverse characters. Native history and literature gave him a lot of ideas that could not be realized at that time. The clapped energy and the constant work of thought sought new fields of application.
The simple truth that a talented person is talented in everything, Baba Annanov confirmed throughout his life. He took up his pen and he turned out to be a talented writer. Magazines and newspapers printed his stories, novels, poems in which his impressions of childhood revived, and the features of folk psychology, traditions and way of life were subtly and objectively reflected. Clean, bright, sad, they immediately attracted the attention of the reader to the imagery of the language, the knowledge of the psychology of people, subtly and accurately noted details of folk life and traditions.
He did not invent his stories - he knew well what he wrote, putting pictures of his post-war youth on paper. He created the characters and images of the people around him, whom he always treated with the same respect, gazed intently at them, trying to see the deep essence of person, hidden under the discreet clothes and no bright appearance.
He understood with his mind and heart that true art always had national basis, and there is no great artist outside his people and his Homeland. Only one collection of his prose "Kyarizniki" was published during the life of Baba Annanov. But there are a lot of unpublished sketches of stories and scenarios that are waiting for their time.
However, he did not have much literary work either. That was why to the two hypostases - actor and writer, he added the third area - director. Baba begins to shoot documentary and feature movies, in which he was the author of the scenarios. In his scripts or in co-authorship, he made such movies as "Serdar", "Zerger", "Masters", "Poet", "Seidi", "Tree of Mukam".
Perhaps, his best picture is "Doves live in kyariz" (the irrigation ditches). The action takes place in 1943, at the height of the war. But the story was set not at the front, but in a small Turkmen village. The war got here, entering almost every house with funerals. But the common grief did not harden, but rallied people. The old men, women and children, are risking their lives and digging the irrigation ditches (kyariz) to save the wheat field from drought.
Baba Annanov entrusted the main role in the movie to his son Kerim - a young soldier, who was a student of the philological faculty of the Turkmen State University at that time. And the son lived up to his father's expectations by playing the role as well as Baba could play it if he was twenty years younger.
Everything that Baba Annanov did - whether he played a role, shot a movie, or wrote prose - he did with enthusiasm. He was a passionate hunter and was infatuated with horses. His ancestors were warriors, dashing riders, and the blood of real jigits boiled in the veins of Baba Annanov. He loved the Akhal-Teke horses with all his heart. People often said about him: "Baba has the eyes of an Akhal-Teke horse".
He himself was a fine rider, which he often demonstrated during the movie shooting, and appreciated the ancient Turkmen art of riding. In the movie "Zohre and Tahir" there were equestrian scenes, and the movie crew was amazed, with what dignity, without much effort Baba sat on his horse. They wrote about Baba that he actually appeared in the cinema like a rider on a dashing horse.
The movie "Zohre and Tahir", made in 1991, was the last director's work of Baba Annanov. He wrote a scenario for the destan of the great Turkmen poet Mollanepes in co-authorship with D. Hudaikuliyev, and played one of the main roles in the movie - the ruler Babakhan, who was the father of Zohre. The second director appointed was his son Kerim.
Father and son have been associated not only by blood, but also by professional relationships. They played in some movies, worked together on scenarios. Subsequently, Kerim adapted two novels of his father "The Wolf" and "The Legend" for big screen, which were successfully demonstrated on all screens of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Both movies were awarded with diplomas of various movie festivals and received approving reviews of movie critics and the press.
Baba Annanov was generous and kind. He did not have many friends, but they were true friends - actors Artyk Dzhallyev, Akmurad Byashimov, composer Nury Halmamedov. He valued loyalty and reliability in people. He did not forgive betrayal and showed a strong dislike to intriguers. Baba avoided conflicts, but at the same time he remained straightforward and could tell a person in the face everything that he thought about him. He hated idleness: the sound of a typewriter did not stop at his home from morning till night, and sometimes from night to morning. Baba was already terminally ill, but he continued to work pushing himself beyond his limits and giving an example of courage to others.
... He lived only for 57 years. But his creative life was very intense and rich, and his contribution to the cinema is significant and incontestable. He did not aspire to titles and awards, but his contribution to art was appreciated. At the age of 32 Baba Annanov was an Honored Artist of Turkmenistan, then a People's Artist of Turkmenistan...
Baba Annanov was strikingly beautiful. Not only externally, but also internally, it is an example of a rare harmony of form and content. He was a real intellectual. And intelligence is not only about erudition. First of all, this is wisdom and conscientiousness, restraint and tactfulness.
For many years, being a bright star on the cinematic horizon, he was not subject to "star disease", but remained as simple and benevolent as at the beginning of his creative career.
He loved his native land devotedly, adored his people.
And, if we put together all that Baba Annanov has managed to do in the cinema and in the literature, then the epigraph to this heritage and to his whole life, could be in the words: "People! I love you…"
